Contracts and Conspiracies
by KC Komicer
Summary: You may not know it but Itoshiki is right to be paranoid. There IS a conspiracy out there and they are out to get you. Really. So when you want to fight back, what do you do? Let us call in a little backup, shall we? A little, magical backup.
1. Speaking English for the benefits

Warning: Usual disclaimers of me not owning the intellectual rights of many concepts and characters portrayed in this fic. If this gets you interested in my old stuffs, good for me! There are events alluded in this story that belongs to my old stories such as 'Movements'. It is highly advisable for you, the readers to have read my previous fanfics before reading this. Heck, it will be useful if you know a good number of other fandoms before reading this. However, what's stopping you from enjoying this story for what it is, heh?

Oh, and this is proudly the 21st fanfic of the 'Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei' section of FFN, posted on 21st Apr 2008. Awesome.

* * *

Exactly on time, the classroom door opened in its usual pomp, announcing the arrival of their teacher. In that instant, Class 2-A came to its attention. Hair was straightened; mobile phone armed; the names of the best lawyers coming to mind. Everyone in her or his way ready for another lesson on the despair-inducing thing known as life and reality.

No teacher in old-fashioned hakama stepped into the room to educate the anticipating students on the depressing way of the world.

The class waited. This was, after all, not uncommon. Occasionally, their dear Teacher Despair would be so deep in self-despair that he could be attempting yet another overly complicated method of unsuccessful suicide, thus resulting in him having another long lecture by their school psychiatrist. Or perhaps it could be the producers trying to drag for time so as to save on animation cost. Strange since this is a fanfiction rather than an actual episode but still, a possibility.

Thus the class waited as a faint buzz of conversation filled the air again.

And they waited.

And waited.

**_ - Speaking English for the Benefits of the International Audience! -  
_**

"Itoshiki Nozomu."

The grave voice boomed without a tinge of emotion.

Itoshiki Nozomu finally opened his eyes to a bright, blinding white. He was still groggy, squinting slightly to see beyond the whiteness. Everything around him was still a blur.

"Am I dead? Is this white light heaven? Is that my ancestor calling for me?" he murmured, feeling around unsuccessfully with his hands for his glasses. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was quite relieved that even in the afterlife, he could still enjoy sitting in the comforts of a nice, cushioned armchair. Why, the afterlife is so insistent that he stay to enjoy the comforts of the armchair that he is bound tightly to it. If so, he will make full use of it. He allowed himself to lean back to enjoy the snug comfort of the cushioning.

What? The train of thought screeched to a halt as it reviewed itself. His limbs were bound tightly to an armchair... what part of theology was this...

"No. It is not heaven," the grave voice boomed again, "This is my office. I am... uhm... the mayor. The local mayor."

The room was dim; save for the shine of the table lamp, shining coldly, directly in his face without any concern. Then... as his eyesight adjusted to the stinging brightness, Nozomu started to take in the details of the room he was in. There was no decorations of any sorts; just walls of dull, mundane brown. At one end of the room sat the owner of the booming grave voice behind his desk of mahogany brown, just like the empty walls of the empty room.

The local mayor's office? Realization came to him. He is in really deep trouble! It must be that! He had that bad feeling all along!

"I swear I am innocent! It was not me who picked up the five yen along the road and spent it as loose change for a new piece of rope two weeks, four hours, twenty-three minutes and twelve seconds ago!"

Nozomu answered hysterically, struggling against the bonds that held him in place on his end of the room.

"Uhm... no, Teacher Itoshiki," the grave voice boomed from behind the desk, this time with some uneasiness in the tone, "That is not it-

Ignoring the grave booming voice™, Nozomu gritted his teeth in fear as waves of desperation washed over him. He is doomed! Doomed! Doomed to a life in prison! Away from what little family and friends he had! No income! No privacy! No dandyish lifestyle! In prison, he would be devoid of his books, his suicidal attempts, his willing audience of students! He would have to share a room with big, burly men! He would have to avoid picking up soaps! He would have to-

Something came to him like an enlightenment.

"Despair! The world that condemns minor errs in judgment has left me in despair!"

"Teacher Itoshiki! Please calm down!" Grave booming voice™ shouted over the delirious cries of the teacher in despair, "We... we are not here to discuss your little roadside finds."

"Then why am I here? Why am I bound?"

"We have received a complaint tha-

"Despair! The culture of complaints have left me in desp-

"No, please listen to me fir-

"Despair! The general assumption that one should be heard first have left me i-

Grave booming voice™ had had enough of despair for the day. All he wanted to do was to talk to this Teacher Itoshiki without interruption. He was not a nasty guy who relish in inflicting pain (not usually anyway) but he was not paid enough for the extra dosage of despair he was receiving that day. With an exasperated sigh and a snap of his finger, he signaled for the silencer.

Before Nozomu could finish his proclamation of despair, felt tape was placed across his mouth, depriving his freedom of speech from him. The entire procedure lasted only a couple of seconds; so silent that no one heard the sound of tearing tape. Then as silently as the silencer came forward to perform the order, the silencer melted back into the background. In silence.

For a moment, grave booming voice™ sat back to enjoy the general silence that was only broken by the weak muffled protests of Nozomu. Having enjoyed enough silence, the grave voice boomed again.

"Teacher Itoshiki, we have received a complaint- and I have just witnessed first hand -that you have been spreading despair amongst your students. That you are having a negative effect on their view of lives and their future."

No reply. Which was expected anyway.

"Your entire class had to repeat their second year! An entire class! It can't be simply because the mangaka is too lazy to update his templates!" Hands were thumped on the desk for emphasis.

Still no reply.

"Anyway, you are required to hold summer classes for your entire class. We need their grades to be up to standard quickly and then seems like a good time. I know what you are thinking," the voice became lighter, more cheerful with the accompanying silence, unfortunately losing its status of 'grave booming' which was a rather fun if lame joke for the author to be spaming, "Lo and behold, it will be the summer holidays soon. In fact, your summer classes will began next week."

Nozomu had clearly given up in his struggles against the cruel felt tape and bounds. Slagging his shoulders in despair, he nodded weakly as he plotted his escape from his responsibilities. Perhaps a cruise to nowhere seem like a good idea. The crisscrossing alleys of excuses might work. Or even the escape chalets in the mountains. Then there is always suicide to end it all once and for all.

"Forget it," the voice answered with relish. Perhaps he can get used to all these nasty business after all. There is always something fun about popping the bubbles of hope (or in this case, despair) of other. " We have confiscated all ropes in your possession and signed a new bill prohibiting the sales of ropes. We have informed your school authorities about the situation and necessary arrangements have been made to prevent any unnecessary happenings such as unfortunate escapes. So..."

The voice reached towards a button on his desk and hovered a finger over it.

"We shall not hold up your precious time with your dear students. Please work harder for the sake of our town's future. Or else."

He pressed the button with a beep.

In that instant, the trapdoor directly below Nozomu opened, allowing him, armchair and all to fall through the hole on the floor. There was not even enough time to scream and even if there was, he could not due to the silencing felt tape.

As he looked up to the closing trapdoor, resigned to his fate of death by falling, he could hear the last words of the voice booming from the opening.

"And no more of that despair stuff! You are to be positive! Think positive!"

Then Teacher (not-to-be-in) Despair hit the ground to the sound of mirthful laughter from above.

_

* * *

_

With a swift, tearing sound, Nozomu felt the offending silencing tape rip off his mouth. The dull aches from the many bruises from the fall coursed through his body. Then he could sense the stares of many boring onto him, quite a number of them carrying a threatening aura, some of them even deadly...

In cases like this, the despairing man decided it was better to play dead. Who knows where he was now? Perhaps grave booming voice™ have dropped him into some strange, out-worldly situation that he was better off not seeing or knowing. He could feel the threatening aura closing in.

"Teacher! Teacher Itoshiki!"

His eyes snapped open upon hearing the familiar voice and in true instinct of a veteran used to such sticky situations, said his trademark comeback.

"What if I had really died?"

"No, you won't," his ever optimistic student, Fuura Kafuka replied cheerfully, "You only fell from the ceiling. That is not enough to kill you. But in the case that you really died, we would hold a funeral for you here, all of us dressed in black and white. All of us will weep and give moving eulogies to Dear Teacher Despair. Matoi-chan will lie in the coffin with you while the rest of us will blame ourselves for what had happen..."

"No, you don't really have to answer that," Nozomu quickly put a stop to the girl's earnest description of his eventual funeral. It is not something one really wants to hear. Plus he has it all planned out perfectly already. His eventual funeral will be huge and grand, the hall filled with weeps and ...

Anyway, it was not time to hap on the depressing matters of the inevitable. Re-adjusting his glasses and looking around at his surroundings, it appeared that he had fallen back into his homeroom. The fall had broken the comfortable armchair which was quite a pity but at least it freed Nozomu from his bonds. Other than Kafuka, the rest of his many students had come to surround him out of curiosity and some detectable concern. Some of them he was more familiar with. Others, due to lack of creative thinking on the mangaka's side, he don't really recognize and since this writer is not interested in creating more OCs, they will be conveniently ignored for this story.

As grateful as he was for the large number of potential mourners for his funeral, it was time for classes. Getting back to his feet, Nozomu waved his students back to their seats while he composed the next life lesson in his mind. From the corners of his eyes, he spied the wreckages of the armchair and more importantly, the rope that had bounded him.

No point wasting good rope.

"Teacher, we heard laughter and a shout about you needing to think positive when you fell from the ceiling. What is it all about?" An absolutely normal voice asked the most normal question that when someone normal faced with such a situation would normally ask.

"Don't call me normal!" Hito Nami protested against the narrative.

Normally, may I add.

"Nami," Kitsu Chiri's sharp, hard voice rang out, cutting across the growing murmurs of curiosity from the class, "The exact phrasing was ,'And no more of that despair stuff! You are to be positive! Think positive!' What is this all about?" She casted her piercing glare straight towards her homeroom teacher, "Who demands that you abandon your stock character trait and what everyone had come to associate with you?"

Nozomu gave a theatrical sigh. He was not thrilled by the situation. He would have to give up on his plans of going back and acting dandyish during summer just to attend to the class. Worse than that, he had to think positively. Forced to be someone he was not. It was most depressing... It was not exactly positive thinking but-

"Perhaps it is the higher ups who have decided to bless the class with hope and grace for failing to be promoted to the next grade," Kafuka said, "They said that Teacher must attend to our academic needs and give us summer classes."

Everyone turned their attention to their cheerful classmate. She returned their stares with a look of blissful innocence and smiled with genuine intent.

"And they wanted Teacher to be more positive," she completed her revelations to the shocked gasps of the class.

Teacher Despair to be positive? Impossible!

"I read the text above," Kafuka added as she noticed Nozomu's questioning look. It was disturbing to say the least. However, she has hit the nail on the spot. Nozomu would have sank into his chair in defeated despair if not for the fact that he had no teacher's chair. For a moment, he considered giving a general rant about his sad state of life and his desire for an end to all.

Then he stopped himself.

'Or else,' replayed itself in his mind. The voice was not that grave when it said that. It was almost cheerful. Happy. Sadistic. Whoever grave booming voice™ was, he was confident that he can follow up on the threat and make Nozomu's life even more miserable if he attempts to do anything else.

Mayor's office, the voice had mentioned. That was unusually high level.

Not that Nozomu was in the mood to think about it. His summer of beautiful, philosophical contemplation about death had been shattered with the order. The need to think positive was achieving directly the opposite effect on him.

"You mean that these are orders from the higher-ups?" Chiri asked.

"Yes," came the reply.

"Then everything is in order. You will have to give us summer classes despite our vehement protests and be positive," the compulsive order girl said with a satisfied sigh, "Since the higher-ups will have authority to do so." She then took a deep breath and exclaimed angrily, slamming her hands onto her desk for impact. "Holiday is holiday! School is school! Why must we have summer school during the summer holidays?"

That sealed his fate. Nozomu made a poor attempt at sighing happily as Chiri's 'vehement protests' started to spread across his dysfunctional class.

"What about Comiket?" wailed Fujyoshi Harumi from the back, "I've already prepared my story! I cannot afford to come to school!"

"My part time work at the zoo," Kobushi Abiru stated quietly, unable to raise her hand due to its possibly domestic violence induced injury.

"It's my fault! It's my fault! Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" Kaga Ai wailed in guilt induced panic as she rang out of the room, slamming the door close behind her.

"I will SUE you!" Kimura Kaere, the resident foreigner of the class shouted in stereotypical crassness of a foreigner as the winds blew and lifted her skirt. If this had not being a fanfiction, one would have been treated to a delicious view of white panties but since this is, one can only hope to imagine.

_You've got mail._ Nozomu took a glance at his ringing phone- _YOU VACUOUS TOFFEE-NOSED MALODOROUS PERVERT!_ -to see yet another long series of abusive curses from Otonashi Meru, his petite student who only communicates through villainous mobile phone messages.

"What? Summer sch- " whoever said that was abruptly cut out when the winds blew hair over his bald spot, removing him from his brief moment of noticeability within the story.

With a almost silent creak, the door opened just slightly and long, soft and slightly creepy repetitions of 'Sorry' came wafting into the classroom. Ai had returned, peeking guiltily from the ajar door as she repeated her trademark phrase.

The protests from the student grew in volume and intensity as minutes passed. There was no way Nozomu could have conducted any lessons at all. He needed the protests around him to stop first if he was to get any word in. "Kudo!" he shouted over the din to the novel-reading student at the corner of the classroom, "Tell us a story!"

The bookworm took his eyes off the novel he had in his hands. With a light nod, he closed his eyes briefly as inspiration flowed through his creative brain. It was a magical moment when his eyes opened with a slight sparkle.

"The summer that was not to be. Once upon a time..." Kudo Jun announced and began another beautifully-crafted fairy tale about a snowman's doomed search for the elusive, legendary season. After ten minutes, he finally finish the story and left everyone spellbound and teary from the sad, poignant ending that felt so much like an analogy of their current situation.

"Cl-Cl-Class!" Nozomu finally said in between his sobs, "I know that we all do not like the idea of attending summer class but we must bear with it..."

"Why not hire some contract agents to help us?"

Once again, the class turned their attention to Kafuka and her sparkling grin.

"That is somewhat Deus Ex Machina, isn't it? It is too easy a solution. That would hardly be proper for a multi-chaptered fanfiction that intends to claim epic status," Nozomu answered while he took a quick glance to Chiri. There was a momentous perk in her attention when he mentioned 'proper'.

"No, it will be a plot device," Kafuka continued, "All of us already have plans for the holidays. None of us wants to stay. It is as good a plot device as our permanent status as year twos or introducing new characters by crashing a car through a window."

Everyone looked towards the window immediately, half expecting a twelve years old girl in laboratory uniform from America to come crashing through it at that very moment.

Nothing.

After the moment of silence, Nozomu clapped his hands to get the attention of everyone. "Class. Maybe that scene is for the next chapter. I shall think about it later," He reached to the drawers of his desk for the notes of the day while taking a cursory glance to acknowledge Matoi's presence underneath his desk.

A single pamphlet was placed neatly in the drawer.

He did not recall it there before.

After scanning the large, brightly printed words on the piece of paper, Nozomu slammed the drawer shut. Too much a coincidence. Not right. His paranoia sense is tingling.

"So what is the lesson for a day?" A voice rang out.

Putting the sense of uneasiness behind him, Teacher Despair took a deep breath and started to speak. He can consider the implications later. Summer school which no one wants despite the authorities' orders, only starts next week after all.

The perpetual buzz returned to the classroom as the usual antics resumed.

And from the room just above the classroom, grave booming voice™ along with other figures watched Nozomu's action closely with anticipation of the unfolding plan.

* * *

"Sameshima! How do I look?"

"Perfect as usual, my dear lady," the butler answered politely in his deep, stoic voice, nodding his head in agreement. A pile of discarded clothings laid at his side; each one of them worthy of a fancy dress party and each one of them only worn once so far. That one time had been just previously when she was trying them on one by one.

The young girl twirled around, admiring her reflection on the mirror. The long ends of her white Chinese-inspired dress followed her movement gracefully. It went well with the green scarf and short cape.

"I like it. Tell the designer that made this set that I'll take one hundred of it," Arisa Bannings placed her hands to her hips in a smug pose and grinned at her own reflection. It is perfect, much better than that pink frilly one that includes that sickly cute cap and wings at the back. Clenching her fist, she did another victory pose to admire herself. Behind her, Sameshima bowed sagely before he left the room.

The reflection of the person leaning on the chair at the corner of her room caught her eyes. The blond-haired boy had been looking at her with reluctant interest of a man in a lady's wear section of a departmental store. When he realized that he had been noticed, he quickly turned away, resuming his look of boredom and sulkiness.

Arisa smirked to herself, just a little. Then she strutted towards the boy and leaned forward, leveling her face to his.

"What do you think?" she said in what she felt was a deep, mature voice, "Do you like it?" She thrust her hips teasingly at the boy. He was trying to avert his eyes away in such a awkward manner.

"Stop it. You are only thirteen."

"But so are you," Arisa replied.

"Why are we doing this again? I could have been out there, doing better things," Gabriel Testarossa whined unhappily. He slumped deeper into the chair. And, Arisa could not help noticing, he was changing the subject.

"Because I'm tired of trekking around the world," she answered with a frustrated sigh. It was not the first thing they were arguing about it. He had raised the question so many times since she suggested the idea, "Because I want to do something different this summer. Because I want to actually use these new.. new skills!"

Gabriel simply gave an equally frustrated sigh as a retort.

Four years already. At least, approaching four years since they first met and became 'siblings' during those tragic events in London. Although he seemed fine, somehow Arisa knew that Gabriel never recovered or forgave himself for what had happened.

Ever since she had taken him up as a younger brother, a fact that Gabriel disputes all the time, they had traveled every summer. Under the directions of the Librarian, they found Master Eldric and learnt from him. They visited magic schools around the world; Gabriel trying to learn as much about magic as he could while he spread the use of alchemy. It was an atonement for him of sorts, to erase his guilt for the events four years ago.

And she, Arisa tagging along and picking up some simple magic along the way.

The contract agency was her idea. She was tired of traveling. That leeches-filled jungles they had entered the previous excursion was the final straw. A young girl, even one who knows a little magic, can only take so much wet socks and leeches.

She never forgot witnessing those magical fights that Nanoha, Fate, Hayate and to a certain extent, Gabriel himself engaged in. The twists and turns, she replayed them in her mind again and again. She knew they were dangerous; she was caught in the crossfire before; she saw magic kill before. But her friends, the magic wielders were so graceful.

So powerful.

So beautiful.

She wanted to be part of the world. She wanted to be able to fight alongside her friends rather than be the damsel-in-distress she had always been so far. To break that invisible barrier between them. This was her chance. A small first step of becoming part of their world.

She knew enough techniques to fight back. It will be chance for her to practice and hone her budding skills so that one day, she will be able to join her friends in their world, side by side.

It will also be a chance for Gabriel to do something different. Something to take his mind off the past.

Together, they will be the 'Bannings Agency', dedicated to aiding those people in need of specialized help (and perhaps a little magic) in exchange for some fees.

"Stop whining and just obey your elder sister!" Arisa said in her most commanding voice. Gabriel turned away and gave a snort of defiance. After all those years, although he had accepted her presence in his life, he had yet to fully accept his new family; let alone the authority of his self-proclaimed 'sister'.

Arisa's eyes narrowed in annoyance. It is time for the trump card.

"TSAB sponsored quite a bit of our travels," she said silkily as her voice dropped a couple of notches down the coldness and villainous scale, "But guess who is the one paying for the recent air flights and travel expenses?"

Arisa whistled innocently as she watched Gabriel's shoulders sagged in defeat. He was lucky that her family was rich enough to fund her journeys with Gabriel. No reply was required.

"That settles it," the girl declared victoriously as she adjusted her thigh-high stockings for comfort. That should end their debate for the next few days. "The official opening of Bannings Agency will be announced in a couple of days. According to Nanoha, the TSAB already has some work for us."

Gabriel showed no reaction despite Arisa's knowledge of his dislike towards the organization.

"It will be exciting!" Arisa tried to liven up the mood, "You will enjoy it!" The boy's sulkiness was starting to affect her too; making her nervous of her prospects on the field. What if her little knowledge of magic was not good enough? She was counting on Gabriel to provide the necessary support that she will surely need. Unlike her magically-talented friends, she was not naturally a magical girl...

The ringing telephone from the corridor interrupted her train of thought. They could hear Sameshima's footsteps as he trod across the hallway and pick up the phone.

"Bannings residence," the butler spoke, "how may I help you?"

"Bannings Agency?" Sameshima repeated the request the caller had made.

That caught both the children's attention. Even Gabriel perked up for a moment in boyish excitement before he quickly resumed his act of unenthusiastic annoyance.

Arisa strained her ears as she tried to catch what her old butler was speaking. Sameshima was to be their manager for the new contract agency. She could just imagine the butler's circle-framed glasses gleaming in reflection while he took notes from the caller; negotiating for a better deal and such.

A moment later, the handset was returned to the cradle. There was a moment of quiet contemplation before Sameshima moved again, entering the room to the anticipation of the children.

"What is it about?" Arisa blurted out in excitement. Even Gabriel was doing a very bad job of feigning unconcern. Their first official 'mission' already! And they had not even officially start up their agency!

Sameshima frowned as he looked at the note he had taken. He could sense that something was amiss. Then he started reading.

"The call was from Suzuki Shoten High School. Apparently, a Mr. Itoshiki wanted to hire you for some help."

* * *

When another successful round of life lessons was finally over, Nozomu hurriedly retreated to the teacher's lounge. In his hand, he held the crumpled pamphlet tightly. Behind him, the trail of stalkers followed quietly and as sneakily as they could, hiding behind pillars and masking themselves in the shadows. Nozomu took no notice of them; he was used to the constant line of people behind him already.

"Is there anything wrong?" Matoi, his stalker number one whispered into his ears with concern, "You are not yourself today. You are usually more... talkative and observant."

"Nothing," the teacher mumbled back in reply as the sense of uneasiness returned to him. Entering the lounge and greeting the resident hikkikomori, Kiri Komori, Nozomu sat himself down on the sofa to read the pamphlet. From all around him, his stalkers settled down and watched their target from their respective hiding places.

"Banning Agency: When you need a little magic!" The words on the piece of glossy paper proclaimed, accompanied by the pictures of the two young agents with photoshop-rendered special effects. A girl and a boy in poses that suggest they had watched too much Masked Rider shows. Barely in their teens, maybe not even teens yet.

The age did not bother Nozomu. He had heard of younger high achievers. Just two years ago, two children were nominated in the prestigious Annual Teacher's Convention for the Rising Talent Award at Fuuka Academy. If children younger than his students could be genius teachers, Nozomu could not see the logic of not having children being contract agents. It was all just the trend of age confusion everywhere now. Or as he said, everyone was forgetting their age. The young were attending higher education while the mature were watching magical girl cartoons.

Resisting the temptation to proclaim his despair at the trend, he continued to consider the implications. What had triggered off his paranoia was the sheer coincidence of it all. Coincidence and luck happens all the time. Everyone relied heavily on luck to a certain extent; from revision of their examinations to the invention of silly but popular toys. The ability of luck to beat sheer effort was enough to make one despair...

Enough with the despair already. His summer holidays to be spent in the most depressing of activities was under threat. His class had more or less threaten revolt. Worst of all, he was forbidden to be in despair.

How could he be not in despair? He was in despair over the fact that he could not be in despair. Then he grew in despair over the fact that he was in despair over the fact that he could not be in despair. That only made him wallow deeper into despair.

And that was not good considering that he was warned most severely against being in despair. Nozomu suspected in the midst of his despair that his reactive acts of despair would earn him a lot of troubles that were so to come; even possibly a dreaded wag of the finger. It was a most depressing thought.

Kafuka suggested that he hire contract agents to deal with the problem.

There was a piece of paper in his desk that did not belong there then that by so coincidentally was a pamphlet that promoted this 'Banning Agency'.

It even included the contact number and a discount coupon.

It could not look more suspicious. It was all a setup, a plot device as Kafuka would put it. Someone out there wanted to get him paranoid, as if he was not already so. Everything was just an elaborate plot by some villainous writer intended on manipulating plot devices to his advantage.

The obvious thing to do was to call up the agency.

After all, if their aim was to bring him into compliance through self-immobilizing paranoid, the method of fighting back was to do what they would not expect him to do. That is, to do exactly what they would have expected him to do.

The higher ups expected Nozomu to be so paranoid that he did nothing instead of doing the logical thing of calling for help from unverified contract agencies ran by minors. So he would go against prediction by doing the logical thing! So there!

Someone handed a telephone over to Nozomu when he finally finished his long, exhausting and despair-filled monologue. He pressed the numbers according to that written on the paper and was answered by a deep, stoic voice. It sounded surprised for a while before getting to business.

It was 'Banning Agency' as the pamphlet had promised. Arisa and Gabriel (the two contract agents) would be informed and they would arrive as soon as possible.

* * *

"And so we go to Suzuki Shoten High School and meet this Mr. Itoshiki?" Gabriel questioned Sameshima suspiciously. The butler nodded in reply.

With a shout of "We accept it!", Arisa was already packing her personal belongings into her luggage. Their first contract! Think about it! No, why bother to think! She could not wait to start.

That left the questioning bit to Gabriel to handle. The boy was not convinced. It came too quickly for his liking. Something must be wrong.

"Did Mr. Itoshiki mention anything about the job?"

"Very little, young master," Sameshima replied. His mustache twitched as the butler frowned. He too had his suspicions. "He simply said that he had a job for the Agency and requested that we go to Suzuki Shoten to meet him. He sounded very urgent. I told him that we will consider it."

"That did not sound convincing," Gabriel folded his arms while he rocked the chair in thought. There was not enough information. Why would a normal high school request for the aid of a magical agency? As far as he knew, magic, real magic was only supposed to be known by people in high position outside of the magical community. Your average man from a high school would not know about it.

"Who cares! I know about it!" Arisa argued as she threw another set of clothings into the already bulging luggage, "We will not keep the man in need waiting! We shall meet him tomorrow!"

Sameshima and Gabriel took a glance to each other. Arisa was burning with passion and enthusiasm now. There would be no denying her what she wanted.

With a sigh, Gabriel got off the chair to exit the room.

"Where are you going?" Arisa shouted fiercely behind him.

He turned back to see his self-proclaimed elder sibling waving her custom made katana at him. Beneath her act of anger and command, he could sense her disappointment that he did not share her excitement.

"Back to my room. I need to pack my stuffs too," he answered, trying to keep his own penned up interest in control. "If I must go, I will need some things too."

Then going through his required inventory at the back of his mind, Gabriel left the room, sure that behind him, Arisa should be smiling.

* * *

The deep, stoic voice at the other end of the call ended the call with assurance to Nozomu that the agents would be arriving soon. Then with a 'click', there was only the dead tone at the end.

Nozomu returned the receiver to the telephone. Someone took the telephone away. A job well done. With hope, he should be able to be in as much despair as he liked.

Someone?

Clap, clap, clap.

The solo act of clapping multiplied itself into a torrent.

Nozomu finally noticed that his entire class of 2-A was around him. They stood before his sofa, each one of them congratulating him, praising him, clapping happily with carefree, cheerful smiles on their face.

Sheepishly, the bespectacled teacher stood up and laughed himself, bowing to his appreciative crowd. It was quite a surreal scene, fit for a temporary ending until it got superseded by a proper movie ending.

"Okay, stop," Nozomu said.

The clapping stopped.

"So will we be getting external help to free us from the summer burden?" Abiru asked softly.

"Yes," Nozomu answered to the cheers of the class.

He looked towards the window. Other than the disturbing figure of one of the many stalkers hiding behind the curtains, the fiery sun was shining brightly and the cotton white clouds were fluffy. It was a perfect day to herald the upcoming summer holidays.

It was not time to be mugging in despair in school. If there was to be any despair to be felt, they would feel it outside. No one! No one shall be in control of their actions!

And all the while, in the room next door with the shades pulled over the window and the lights switched off, dark figures silhouetted by cliché shadows crouched around a small transmitting device. Nozomu's voice was played over again and again. Then the one that looked like the leader, or at least the one that looked more deviously evil in the dark pressed another button. Sameshima's voice, saying that they will consider, was played.

They grinned to each other. The most deviously evil of them had a grin that glinted despite the lack of light. Then they all put on their featureless masks of pure white with streaks of red, like tears of blood. There was only long, narrow slits of rectangles for eyes and mouths on the mask.

"The job-" someone among all of them said in a deep, stoic voice before coughing slightly and reverting back to his not so deep, not as stoic, 'quite sissy really' voice, "is done for now. Let us now wait and see..."

Murmurs of agreement.

"Let us go to the beach now, shall we?"

* * *

_Naming rights always up for grabs!_

**Contracts and Conspiracies**

_Komicer Productions_

* * *

"Teacher Itoshiki," Chiri asked seriously, "Why are we speaking and thinking in English?"

The class went silent for a moment as the obvious sets in.

"What?"

"Ever since the start of the story, all of us have been communicating in English rather than our native Japanese! If we are in Japan, why is everything in English?"

"That's because we need to cater to the mass readers who do not understand Japanese!" Nozomu declared with pomp, glad that the topic had somehow shifted away from dangerous issues,"Because the writer did not feel like writing in Japanese! Because he thinks that no one can read it! Thus we need to be speaking in English!"

"In order to cater to the needs of the masses, things around the world have been simplified, made common!" Nozomu continued. He was in a roll now, "Language, culture, religion! Nothing matters as for the benefit of the masses, everything has to be made common! And we are not the only one! These are all examples of things made common!"

- Afro Samurai

- Californian Sushi Roll

- Non-spicy curry

- Lollipop sucking Sanji

- Hikaru Utada singing English songs well

- Post-modernist abstract art

- Democracy

"Despair!" Nozomu exclaimed, "The dumbing down of all thi-

He stopped himself quickly. Grave booming voice™'s 'Or else.' rang into his mind again. It was best that he do not tempt fate and go against those who orders him around.

"We are not simplifying all things," Kafuka said positively, "This is globalisation! We are speaking English not because the writer is too dumb to write in Japanese but because we are doing so for the benefit of international readers! So that as the international readers get used to this, they will go for the original source material!"

"What again?" Nozomu asked after a brief pause.

"If the international community likes Californian sushi roll, they will try real, raw sushi in the future with proper manners such as the proper way of dipping it in soy sauce! If the international community likes non-spicy curry, they will give real, spicy curry a try! We are speaking English so that if international community likes this story, they might give the original 'Goodbye Teacher Despair' a try! Going international will widen the item's popularity!"

Nozomu had to admit that for once, Kafuka seemed to have a point.

"Japanese is Japanese! English is English!" Chiri said exasperated, "We must stick to the original materials! All these adaptations are annoying me! I must make the necessary changes and first of all, 私たちは日本語を言います！"

"大変!待ってー" Nozomu tried to stop Chiri from making the changes too late. Even he is speaking in Japanese now. The international community will be neglected! Popularity will drop! Reviews will fall! It will not be long before 千里はこのストーリに変更する。。。

悪い！もう遅い。ストーリもう日本語に倣う。。。

* * *

This is to be my fourth multi-chaptered fic ever and I am proud of it. In a way, this is intend to be a sequel of sorts for my previous fic located in the Nanoha section, 'Movements'. Just a little background to the backstory of Gabriel and Arisa. Arisa is a canon side character from the Nanoha series. Gabriel, he is my OC. Lots of troubles and conflict from 'Movements' which ended up with Gabriel becoming an orphan and Arisa's reluctant 'younger brother'.

I got no idea how this story will end up as. Sure, there is a few 'checkpoints' but everything in between, we'll see how the flow takes us. All inputs are welcomed.** I could always use having a beta to sieve out any mistakes in the story. You get the benefits of knowing future plot points earlier, the chance to abuse me and naming rights to anything that can be renamed! That includes the title of this story! To apply, just drop me a email or sound me out on Livejournal.  
**

Finally, to all who have read till here: thank you for your support and enjoy everything! Don't forget to leave a review along your way out. Best concrit per chapter gets the name of the school named after you for one future chapter!


	2. Errors like this, I lack in my youth

Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Burning Arisa are not the intellectual property of mine.

* * *

_** - Errors like this, I lack in my youth - **_

"We would like to apologize to the readers for the sudden change in language last chapter," Kafuka said to no one in particular as class started, "Chiri-chan is only passionate about purity of languages."

Itoshiki Nozomu surveyed his class before him. Everything was back to normal; everyone was speaking English again. Everyone was seated in their seats, trademark stereotypes in action. Maria swinging from the lights; Meru on her mobile phone; Matoi stalking him from behind and the chain of stalkers taking up position around the class to obverse their targets. Everyone was ready for class, perhaps with the exception of Chiri who was gagged and bounded by his last remaining rope to the ceiling.

Her mouth was gagged so all Chiri could do was protest through muffled Japanese sounding shouts. Her face, flushed with anger and resistance as she wriggled unsuccessfully against the binding ropes.

Her struggles were in vain. Matoi was surprisingly skillful with the knowledge of tying people down with rope. Just look at all those crisscrossing of nylon, those tight knots that secured her limbs in place, that uncomfortable yet... interesting position his anal retentive student forced to be in, how her bodily assets seemed to be emphasized by the position of the ropes... There was something to it.

If only we can put a finger to what it reminds us of. But let us return to the main story.

A raised hand.

"Yes?"

"Brother Dear, are we waiting for the car carrying a twelve years old girl in laboratory uniform from America to crash through the window?" his sister, Itoshiki Rin, unrivaled mistress of excellence in all things asked.

There was a moment of pause as though everyone expected a violent protest against the narrative; such as a verbal rebuke or perhaps even the deliberate act of violence.

None came.

Not that it mattered, right?

Everyone looked towards the window.

Nothing. Just the peaceful scenery of whatever the studio traditionally used as the backdrop; not a single roar of a speeding, out-of-control car to be heard coming from afar.

"No, that plot device had been taken by Ansem for Scheme! last year. And despite popular demand, we are not expecting a twelve years old girl in laboratory uniform from America," Nozomu said that without a pause. The engine of his mind was starting; having got someone to make a comment that could be further elaborated and twisted for maximum despair inducement.

If not for the fact that he was forbidden to show or create despair.

Ignoring the heartache and despair, Nozomu tried to fight back his urges to rant about 'inspiration' and originality or the lack of it for everything. The urge! The pain! He must fight it! Help is coming!

Oh for the sake of filler content, to hell with that.

Nozomu can deal with the consequences that come later.

"Why?"

Placing his palm to his forehead and making a light turn of his head, befitting of the main fangirl-attracting anti-hero of the story, he gave a loud, exaggerated sigh.

"Why?" Nozomu repeated himself with great despair in his voice, "Why is there an assumption that new characters must be introduced through loud, flashy manners such as crashing a car through the wall? That is a scene straight out of the first episode of Pani Poni Dash! Where is the originality in doing that?"

"Some people might call it 'paying tribute to the source material'. Just like how we are talking about things that did not matter to the main story now," Harumi, the resident fangirl protested against Teacher Despair's words, "We are doing so to pay tribute to the source material. The source material that gave us inspiration!"

She drew and sold fan doujins as her hobby. So that would probably make her an expert in fan works that 'pays tribute to the source material' and 'inspiration'.

"Heh," Nozomu averted his eyes to look at the ground, "Inspiration, you say? I've heard of that excuse before."

"If you get inspired, why do people not create new works but stay in the domain of fan works?" the teacher raised his voice for dramatic purposes, "Because we insist on inspiration and paying tribute, all we get are repeats! Repeats of previous works which are repeats of previous works! These are all repeats that claimed to be inspired!"

- Powerpuff Girls → Demashitaa! Powerpuff Girls Z

- Yu-Gi-Oh → Duel Masters

- Bush → Bush

- Clinton → Clinton

- Porn → More Porn

- Saimoe → Saimoe Korea → Saimoe International → Saimoe Galaxy

- 2chan → 4chan → 7chan → 8chan → 9chan → 12chan → 420chan → over-9000chan → ∞chan

"Despair! Copycats that insists on being tributes have left me in despair!" Nozomu wailed in heartfelt despair despite the dangers of being despaired.

"Look at Kudo-kun!" Jun, our talented story teller and yet another fangirl-bait took a moment out of reading his book when he heard his name mentioned. Then he returned to his book.

Nozomu continued, "He makes up his own original stories out of little, insignificant things! But it will touch and move our very souls and emotions!"

"You mean we should see things that did not exist in the first place?" There was a glint in Harumi's eyes as she looked from her classmate to her teacher. Then she started to laugh softly to herself as her imagination started sketch possible stories for future plot lines. For the sake of the ratings and this writer's sanity, her imagination would not be described but rest assured that it is vivid.

"Er. No," Harumi's low laughter to herself was creeping Nozomu out, "I was saying that we should not repeat things that had be done before."

With the substandard obligatory tribute to the series' mark of fame settled and behind us for now, the soft shuttering of helicopter blades could finally be heard from the distance.

Then it grew louder. And louder.

If you were to look out of the window now as the class of 2-A did, you would see the Black Hawk helicopter approaching threateningly from the distance. It is a beautiful machine, designed for sleekness and mobility, capable of both transport and fighting. Its black tinted windows made it hard to see who is inside but one can just make out an old adult figure piloting the helicopter and two smaller, children-sized figures behind him.

Of course, as mesmerizing a sight as an incoming Black Hawk can be, with its machine gun turrets, howitzers and perhaps one of those awesome guns with rotatory barrels that fire hell-lot of bullets within a single second all targeted ahead, it is never a good idea to be in its path. Especially if there was only windows and a single wall in between you and the black flying machine of destruction and pure awesome.

In fact, hear it from the writer, it might be a good idea to get out of the way.

A VERY good idea to get out of the way.

Like now.

As the black hawk loomed closer with no sign of slowing down, realization slowly dawned to the class of 2-A that just because it was ranted that crashing a vehicle is too commonly used as a plot device, it did not mean that the writer would not use it. He simply upgraded the vehicle for impact.

A mad scramble ensured to get as far away from the incoming helicopter as possible. Gruesome deaths might not occur in a 'T' rated fanfiction but grievous body harm is certainly still fair game. Yet, it would not be wise if hospitalization resulted in less screen time for the injured character. You never know when you need to invoke their presence for plot devices.

The Black Hawk smashed through the wall without a care for underpaid, neglected characters, reducing the wall to smithereens. Wooden splinters, sawdust and glass fragments scattered across the room, by the will of the writer miraculously missing every single character; leaving none the worse but a little dirty from the ensuring dust clouds and in the case of Kaere, upside down and providing this fanfiction with her obligatory but unviewable panties flash.

"Good job, Sameshima! Great impact!"

Someone spoke with pride through the dust curtain. A high, sprightly voice fit for a young lady used to having all her whims and needs catered to her in a silver spoon. As the class finally staggered unsteadily back to their feet to the backdrop of Ai's continuous sermon of "It is my fault; I'm sorry.", they could make out two short figures step lightly out of the helicopter and into the wreckage.

The young girl stepped out first, sweeping up sawdust with her confident strident steps. With a flick of her long, waist-length dirty blond hair and giving her white outfit a dust, she extruded an air of a well-to-do lady, proud and self-assured. In one gloved hand, she held a long wooden broomstick; the other hand, she gestured to her partner in crime.

The boy hopped off the helicopter next, landing on his feet softly. A long staff with a knob at its end was slung at his back with a strap. Slouching slightly with a look of rude defiance, the boy with his uncombed blond hair was dressed in a dark robe fit for a Halloween fancy dress party. The young, grouchy 'wizard' took a long, drawn-out look around the wrecked room as the dust curtain settled before giving the dazed audience a quick bow.

The girl stood forward haughtily and slammed the end of her broom on the ground beside her. That garnered the attention of the audience. With a bright, enthusiastic smile, she said loudly:

"Did somebody call for the Agency?"

* * *

No one replied, Gabriel noticed cautiously. Everyone was just staring at them dumbfounded, as though their entrance had outdone anything they have expected. Looking around and taking mental notes of the damage,he had to admit that Arisa's idea of a loud, flashy entrance was too much. There was no stopping the tomboy once she had her ideas. He would have to repair and return everything to their original state later.

The students stared for a minute. Then a growing undercurrent of murmuring and activity started.

So this is when the pouncing and loud squeals of delight from teenage girls starts. Gabriel prepared himself. That was what will usually happen as far as his research gone. Children trying to do adult occupations such as school teachers get pounced and snuggled by teenagers.

"Who are the two of you?"

A perfectly normal question to ask in a situation like this; even if it was to a certain extent, disappointing. Knowing that Arisa will answer it with her pompous manner, Gabriel took a glance towards the girl who had asked the question. The looks just as you expect from an older teenage girl, quite normal.

"And don't call me normal!"

What? What's with the outburst? Arisa recoiled in surprise, unsure what to reply. Not that they actually called her normal; they simply thought she was quite normal.

"I know you are thinking that I am normal! I don't want to be normal!" The nor... really there is not other way to put it, normal girl protested against her label.

The confused look on Arisa confirmed that she had the same suspicions as him. Gabriel tried to sense for any magic in the air. Perhaps these students were psychics. Mind reading was quite an advanced form of magic. It was not easy even with the PSI users in Eagleland.

He could not detect any magic. How could non-magical humans read their mind? It was that or there were other forces masking the magical presence. At the back of his mind, he also tried to add other adjectives to his image of the girl other than normal. Average? Typical? Plain perhaps? In a good kind of way.

Before he could collect his thoughts, the rest of the class broke up into an uproar. A barrage of questions, hostile threats of lawsuits, endless streams of apologies and for no reason, even a strain of a rather touching and engaging story involving dust mites in the background.

"Are you sure this is the right school?" Gabriel whispered to Arisa over the noise, "The students seem quite... unusual." Save for the normal one, of course.

"I think so... Sameshima was certain that the school address was correct. But the school's name...," Arisa replied, casting a suspicious eye at the seemingly hostile class. She was no longer acting sure or confident. And Gabriel noticed, she was standing to back away slowly towards the helicopter.

A tug at his long sleeves caught his attention. One of the students, a short young girl with her hair secured cutely in twin ponytails. With a cute squeak of fear, she thrust her mobile phone in their direction. There was a line of numbers on the screen.

"You want us to send you a message?" Arisa asked kindly, affected by the childish charm of the girl who hardly look older than them.

A weak nod followed by a shy, constrained squeak.

Arisa whipped out her own mobile phone and quickly typed a simple message for the girl. The girl received it happily and gave a satisfied smile. Then she began to type a message in reply.

Soon, Arisa's mobile phone buzzed with receiving a new message. _Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries. _Arisa's smile quickly became a scowl.

With another squeak of fear, the mobile message insulter was caught by steaming Arisa and was soundly shouted and raved at by her captor. Before she noticed it, Arisa had became part of the racket in the ruined class.

Ignoring his hot-tempered god-sibling's argument with the small insulter, Gabriel looked upwards to see the dark-skinned child swinging happily on the helicopter blades of their Black Hawk without a care. He then looked away out of politeness when he realized that he could see her panties.

Another sight from above drew him. Why did they have a tied up girl hung from the ceiling? The attractive girl with perfectly parted hair was obviously uncomfortable in that position, struggling against the gag in her mouth. And the method which she was tied up... Gabriel looked to the ground uncomfortably. What kind of school was this?

Obviously they must be at the wrong place. Perhaps this was an asylum. It was obviously not Suzuki Shoten High School. It was named Komicer High School outside. The 'High School' must be a red herring to keep these strange people in.

However it would still be prudent to make a final confirmation. Arisa was too caught up with her one-sided argument with the small student. He would have to do it himself. To think that Arisa, his self-proclaimed 'elder sister' was the initiator of this whole business. The time could have been so better well spent on his journeys.

With a depressed sigh, Gabriel straightened up and shouted his question over the din.

"We are sorry for our entrance. We are looking for a Mr. Itoshiki. Is he here?"

The din stopped immediately, bringing the classroom into another awkward silence while the strange ensemble of teenagers stared at the young, foreign boy before them. Then they all pointed in unison towards the man in old-fashioned Japanese wear lying face down directly before him.

* * *

Just play dead.

He had ranted about his despair.

A helicopter armed with heavy weaponry, including one of those awesome guns with rotatory barrels that fire hell-lot of bullets within a single second arrived to wreck havoc into his class.

It must be them!

Them!

They are out to get him!

Maybe if he just play dead, they would leave him for now.

With that in mind, Nozomu shut his eyes tightly and stayed in his position on the ground. The descending sawdust coated the floor and his body in a fine layer. It made breathing difficult, especially if you were trying to play dead.

With luck, he would suffocate to death and end his miserable, depressing life once and for all.

And so, he laid there, face down and his eyes closed, trying to play dead while also trying to inhale as much dust as possible by breathing deeply.

Someone touched him on his shoulders and shook it lightly.

"Excuse me. Are you Mr. Itoshiki?" the youthful voice asked politely.

Just play dead. Nozomu tried to calm his frayed nerves while he maintained his undignified position. The dust was starting to irritate his nose.

More shaking. More aggressive too.

"Mr. Itoshiki? I can feel you breathing. I know you are conscious." The voice was getting an annoyed edge to it. Was that a slight tint of despair he could sense from the voice?

Don't respond. Stay still and maybe they will leave.

"Let me help you," a familiar dangerously positive voice offered cheerfully.

Before he could react to his tingling sense of danger, he felt a sharp kick to his hips. With an unwilling yelp of pain, Nozomu sucked in the thin coat of dust and sprung up into a sitting position.

Gagging and coughing, he looked up to Kafuka's blissfully innocent face.

"What if I had really died?"

Kafuka smiled back at Teacher Despair. Innocent. Cheerful. Optimistic. Revealing nothing of guilt or sorry. Her dangerous optimism was as socially defensive and hard to penetrate a layer as his own suicidal pessimism.

Then with a building sense of dread, he turned to face his would-be captors.

Children. Barely teenagers. Blond. The boy with a staff (with a knob at its end) and the girl a broomstick. A look of frustration, annoyance and despair on their faces.

Something else registered in his mind.

Foreigners!

They are here to sue him!

"Are you Mr. Itoshiki?" The boy asked while the girl fumed impatiently behind.

"It was not me who picked up the five yen along the road and spent it as loose change for a new piece of rope two weeks, one day, three hours, forty minutes and twenty-three seconds ago!" He tried to scramble away. Unsuccessfully.

The girl had positioned herself between him and the exit. Meru was whimpering pitifully in the glowering girl's arms, fearful even if not repentant. Her message to him was clear.

Don't try.

"I take that as a 'yes'," the boy sighed unhappily, "We are from the Bannings Agency. The one who called yesterday."

"Oh," Nozomu stared at them suspiciously, "I will not be sued?"

The children gave each other confused looks, as though they were arguing between themselves before the boy finally looked back to him. "If you want to be sued, we can easily arrange for it to happen..." the boy answered slowly and uncertainly, looking at Nozomu for a reaction.

"We are the Agency. We will get anything done for you. Nothing too difficult for us to do," the girl interjected, releasing Meru from her arms. His shy but foul-electronic tongued student took the chance to quickly slip away. The foreign girl did not bother about her escaping captive but continued to address Nozomu.

"You called us yesterday. Said you had a job for us. So what will it be?"

Oh. Yes. Them. The two children featured on the pamphlet. They were going to meet him. From his position, Nozomu studied them. They did not look that dangerous. He was Teacher Despair of Class 2-A after all. He was used to being with dangerous characters. It was a really depressing job which was why he needed his summer vacation. They were to be his answer to the problem.

He was expecting two children to solve his problem.

To get the ministry and the higher ups off his back.

To save summer for everyone.

Two foreign children.

Don't panic. Don't despair. You never know what those foreigners can achieve. Especially since she had said that they can get anything done. Nothing too difficult.

He had dismissed it before but they were really young, weren't they. It made him wonder under what kind of strange, tragic, despair-inducing (and interestingly 'delicious') circumstances did they meet and came to be like so. Errors like these, he certainly did not have in his youth.

There was something about them. Something out of place. These two children did not belong. Youth was not the problem; it was something else. He could not catch it but whatever it was... it was making him uneasy in ways worse than a lawyer can. The staff and the broomstick they wield made him jittery. They seemed to believe in magic. Like all those pretty photoshopped image that grace the pamphlet.

Magic. A convenient answer to everything.

Need to find a dropped pencil? Magic. Need to ace an exam? Magic. Need an ice cream? Magic. Save a life? Magic? It can replace hard work and effort. It takes the miracle out of miracles. A solve-all solution that takes away the importance and meaning of everything else.

Most depressing.

And if he wanted more time to contemplate and wallow in despair on this depressing issue, he would have to hope for the best. Hope for the chance that he had to despair without interference. No point wasting despair for the lack of chance to despair.

Plus, they're only children. And those long, blunt objects they carried were most likely only props. There was no point in crushing the magic of childhood. He still remembered the day he learnt too much about Santa Claus. Years of innocent childhood filled with magic and hopes were crushed like a can under someone's foot. Mercilessly stepped, crushed and disposed of. And not recycled too.

Magic never existed.

Only despair did. And the higher ups threatened that now.

"Yes, yes. I am Itoshiki, the one who called for your service," Nozomu answered between gags. The dust that still refuse to end his life irritated his throat instead; a most uncomfortable situation between surviving the dusty suicide attempt and dying from it.

"What's with Komicer High School? You told us Suzuki Shoten High School," the boy questioned.

"Naming rights. It is all part of the grand scheme where everything could be renamed and principles changed as long as enough money is paid," Nozomu explained, "Due to time constraint, watch season one episode one to get the full rant."

"What?"

The children looked confused. His students did not. They understood to varying extents. Surveying his class, Nozomu could make out the damage and racket the two contract agents had caused. The few and more important students who had been named by the mangaka were in no ready state for class.

The usual din could be heard. Surely if Chiri was free, and she was not, she would be in a fuss and greatly bothered by the lack of order. Some students had come to surround their Teacher Despair and the new arrivals. Some students had gathered around the crashed Black Hawk, poking and observing it like curious scientists or military geeks. Kino, Mitama, Okusa and some others. Most of them asking about the awesome gun with rotatory barrels that fire hell-lot of bullets within a single second. A tall, middle-aged man dressed like a butler was trying to keep them away from the landed helicopter. Reflections from his thinly-framed glasses obscured his eyes and his gray-silver mustache like his neatly-combed hair gave him an air of solid reliability. A perfect example of a combat butler.

In stereotypical terms, he would have a dark history which might involve the military, spy-noir background, blazing guns, such as the awesome gun with rotatory barrels that fire hell-lot of bullets within a single second and a beautiful but deadly lady. All to the alluring tempo of jazz.

But that is not the story for this time.

Something that Nozomu noticed was that only one wall was destroyed or broken. Quite an obvious observation one might say but significant for this story. Only one single wall was broken by these young contract agents, let alone four walls.

It might take some time before they would break the fourth wall.

"Nevermind," Nozomu stood up, brushing away the suicide-unworthy dust from his hakama, "Would you mind if you take a seat at the side first while I have a class to teach?"

Another glance of understanding between the two (they seem to do that a lot) before they retreated to be back of the class to wait for the end. Both of them leaning against the wall, watching the proceedings of the class with a skeptical look on their face. They reminded Nozomu of the occasional class observers sent by the Ministry, dedicated to ruining his career of teaching by distracting him and criticizing his every actions. A most depressing thought.

It took long before order was restored to the class. As much order as there could be with two children trying to act older than they were behind them, a Black Hawk crashed through the outer wall of the room and the awesomeness of the awesome gun with rotatory barrels that fire hell-lot of bullets within a single second in the room. Or at least, just enough for the day's lesson of despair to proceed since this was Class 2-A after all. There was no such thing as order in this class.

And when class finally ended, there was the usual exodus of students from the class. Hurried farewells and swift exits from the class. Everyone making their way back home having completed yet another despair-enlightened day, courtesy of Teacher Despair. Save for the exception of Kiri who had made the school her home, Matoi who was dedicated to shadow him and the permanent chain of stalkers behind him of course. And who knows who else decided to stay back for the day.

The expressions on the two children throughout the class had been most interesting and quite indescribable. It changed as the class progressed. Unbelieving to mild disgust to somewhat interested to 'what-kind-of-deep-trouble-have-I-gotten-into'. But they did not say anything yet; they just watched.

With most of the homeward students homeward bound, Nozomu finally turned towards his contract agents with a weakly optimistic sigh.

"We can now talk about why I need you here," Nozomu said, ready to tell them about the situation and what he wanted them to accomplished. If what the girl had said so confidently, 'We will get anything done for you' was true, then any price would be worthwhile for a good summer break full of quiet despair and deliberately unsuccessful suicide attempts. He could afford it; the Itoshiki family was one of the most powerful rich families around Japan.

"Later. We need to repair this room first," the boy did not even look up to Nozomu as he looked around the ruined room instead. As for the girl, she was already getting the combat butler of theirs to unload luggage after luggage from the helicopter. When everything was uploaded and the girl nodded in satisfaction, the butler boarded the helicopter and lifted off, flying the slick beautiful war machine with the awesome gun with rotatory barrels that fire hell-lot of bullets within a single second into the sunset.

Then Nozomu, along with all the stalkers behind him, was unceremoniously kicked out of his own classroom.

* * *

As Gabriel calculated the alchemic formula required to undo all the damage to the classroom, he resisted the urge to snigger or to say, "I told you so." So he made do with a knowing smirk, knowing full well that Arisa would be fuming in extreme vexation.

"Go ahead. Go ahead and laugh," his impatient god-sibling said in defeat as she kicked the debris into a pile near the hole.

"I thought you would have exploded and left in a huff," Gabriel said, still not laughing although his smirk just got wider, "He is quite an interesting teacher if very, very strange."

"I still can do so," Arisa replied darkly while she knelt down behind him. Their employer's nonsense was not something that she would take lightly. "But a job is a job. It is still our first contract. We could not just walk out of it."

"We have not even hear what he wanted yet," Gabriel stated as he fished out the chalk from his robe to start drawing the alchemic circle on the floor. Mr. Itoshiki's lesson was interesting; enlightening even. Unlike the rest of the class, Nozomu was not insane. He was beyond sane; he was knurd.

He could see the truth beyond the layer of simple ignorance people tend to maintain. He looked through that defensive layer and saw how the world truly was. It brought much despair as the teacher was fond of saying but it was true knowledge and understanding. It certainly did reinforce his opinion of the world.

Given the chance, he would like to hear and learn more from Mr. Itoshiki.

"Anyway, I think they are not aware of magic or its real existence," Gabriel finally completed the reconstruction alchemic circle on the floor and pocketed the chalk, "I think we should try to avoid performing magic before them. And we should change to a more normal outfit to blend in later." He had heard that magic users who exposed themselves to civilians could be punished by forced transformation to various animals.

The idea of being furry did not appeal to him. It would certainly bring despair to him. That was why he had kicked the teacher out of the classroom first before they perform the reconstruction alchemy to repair the damages.

Arisa nodded silently beside him.

After giving the circle a check for possible errors, the alchemist brought his hands together with a clap and then touched the side of the circle. Instantly, the circle begun to glow magically as the pieces of the debris started to return to position. The destroyed wall was rebuilding itself, bit by bit; closing the gapping hole left by their crashing Black Hawk.

When the circle finally stopped glowing, the wall was as good as new. The windows might have taken a more fancy, gothic design due to Gabriel's taste and influence but generally, the wall was back. It was time to turn their attention to the rest of the classroom.

There was a muffled gasp of surprise from behind. To be precise, somewhere two o'clock from their back.

The reaction, honed from years of experience and training, was instantaneous. Gabriel's wand was whipped out from the dark recesses of his robe and pointed threateningly towards whoever had been watching them, ready to fire off an offensive spell immediately. Arisa did not have a wand; she knew magic but she was not exactly a witch. Her katana was already unsheathed from its broomstick disguise and too directed at the one behind them.

Or at least, tied up in an uncomfortable but very interesting position from the ceiling behind them.

He had completely forgotten about the hung girl from the ceiling. Or rather, it was something that he willed himself into not seeing. Yet now, with the timely reminder of her hanging presence, the sight of the attractive girl tied and left hanging on the ceiling was not something he could tear his eyes from. It causes reaction in him.

And now, she had seen the alchemic transformation. Watched it with eyes wide opened with wonder and surprise. She might not understand the implications of it but she would know what it was. Her mouth might be gagged but it did not take much to imagine what she might want to say...

"Oh damn," Gabriel cursed.

* * *

Arisa simply stared at the sight before/above her with her mouth gapping, unsure of what to say. The class had been quite a wonder, a surprise on how a group of extremely dysfunctional teenagers could or could not function together, in a bad kind of way.

Yet, that.

That girl hung from the ceiling just took the cake. Not to mention the method which she was tied up. It was most interesting... interesting enough to get Arisa flustered. And she questioned herself once again, just as Gabriel had questioned too: Just what kind of school was this?

Gabriel closed his eyes briefly and started to mumble a couple of unintelligible latin. All the while keeping his wand pointed directly at the female student. The girl seemed to understand the implications of his actions and hung her head down in silence, closing her eyes in anticipation.

Reacting on instinct, Arisa swiftly delivered a blow towards her god-brother's arm, just as a bright stream of light blasted from the wand. With a cry of pain, Gabriel lost his aim and the magical beam was diverted away, missing his target and hitting the ceiling to the left of her instead. Where the beam hit, there was a burst of debris and a slight depression left.

"Why did you do that?" the boy growled angrily, raising his wand hand again.

"Stop it!" Arisa pushed Gabriel's aim away, "Are you trying to kill her?"

That stopped him. For a moment, there was a haunted look in his eyes before he reasserted control.

"It's only a memory erasion spell," came the quiet, weak protest.

"Sure did cause a hole in the ceiling," came the retort. Arisa released her grip on Gabriel's arm and strode towards the hung girl.

"The spell was not exactly designed for non-living things... hey!" Gabriel jogged towards his god-sibling.

Arisa was already piling up tables and chairs to reach the girl. Upon seeing Arisa drawing her katana, the girl's struggle became more violent and more frantic.

"Oh, keep still," Arisa muttered before she addressed Gabriel, "Get ready to catch her." Then with a smooth swipe, she sliced the rope that attached the girl to the ceiling.

The girl fell with a muffled scream.

And she never hit ground.

As Arisa jumped down her impromptu furniture structure, she could see the small pendant on Gabriel's wrist glowing brightly as a small but strong circular wind current stopped the girl's fall and brought her down slowly and safely. When the girl was finally touched ground, Arisa removed the gag from her mouth.

どうして- was the first thing the girl said in a tone of surprise and annoyance. She cleared her throat, then she asked again,

"Why? Why did you not blast me and release me?"

The girl with perfectly parted hair had a look of frustration and anger as she said that.

"Because I don't want to," Arisa replied as she moved her attention to releasing her from the bonding ropes. Sliced ropes and knots fell to the floor as the younger girl made delicate, careful cuts.

"Because she don't want to," Gabriel replied at the same time. He was watching her actions warily with his fingers twitching in readiness. He would fire at any wrong move.

When freed, the older girl massaged her hands and stood up, eying the two children carefully.

"Then I will have to go running out of the room, screaming about the sights I have just seen," she stated as though it was the thing to do.

"We are going to have to erase your memories before you do so then," Gabriel aimed his wand again.

The girl made no attempt to run or escape.

"No!" Arisa quickly placed herself before both of them, "We can't do that!"

"No, I insist. It is the only proper thing to do," the girl behind her stated evenly, with not an ounce of fear in her.

"See? Even she," Gabriel re-aimed his wand, "agrees with me. It had to be done."

"No!" Arisa went towards Gabriel and led him away, speaking softly into his ears, "Remember all those research you have done about the spell? Many people had said it was a faulty spell. And all those potential side effects too."

Gabriel grimaced in reluctant agreement. Side effects may include permanent memory loss, mini explosions or dissipation of all clothings.

"You two are the contract agents Teacher Itoshiki hired," the fearless girl stated, "Magical contract agents... It might just work."

"Look, just try to forget what you saw," Arisa said, "You do not want us to use that spell."

"Civilians cannot find out about magic," the girl replied coldly, "If you do not cast that memory spell on me, you must do the next proper thing. You must trail me and make sure I do not reveal your secret."

Both god-siblings stared at the girl they had just freed. Did she just ordered them to do something?

"I don't think you have any lodgings yet. You will insist that you want to use my home as your base," the girl continued, "You will use this as a pretense to trail me and ensure my silence. I might occasionally let slip something and you will have to try and stop me."

"No, it's really not necessary..." Gabriel started.

"You must do the proper thing!" the girl stressed sharply, "I might protest but you will have to insist and I will have no choice but to relent."

"Uhm, We are satisfied as long as you promise to keep silence," Arisa said hesitantly at the straight-forward girl.

"No! You will do the proper thing!" she repeated herself, louder and with more emphasis as she took a step closer to the children, "or else." She spoke that softly but it was creepy enough to send chills to Arisa and Gabriel.

They drew towards each other, starting to feel fearful of the girl terrorizing them. They could even sense the dark, threatening aura arising from around her. Arisa was starting to regret stopping Gabriel. That must have been the reason why she was binded away from the rest of the strange class. They had just released a dangerous demon.

"Eerr..." Gabriel hazarded a reply, "We will need to keep you under observation until we deem you clear and safe to our interest?"

The girl smiled in satisfied sinisterness before the dark aura of danger around the girl disappeared abruptly. A look of uncertainty, confusion and fear replaced the evil smile.

"Really?," she whimpered genuinely, "You are sparing me?"

Great. Now everyone in the class was truly and definitely insane. They could only hope that the mission to come was not something insane. Or at least not too insane.

"We will need to use your house. You got no choice," Arisa played along in the most confident voice she could muster, "We will move in later today."

"Thank you. Thank you," the girl groveled most realistically, "I am Kitsu Chiri. You are most welcome to my humble abode."

* * *

Nozomu waited outside his classroom, waving goodbye and giving more choice advice of despair to the few stragglers.

There was nothing else to do. Everyone had left for home. So he waited more.

Then he paced in circles. Because that was what to be expected in waiting scenes. His stalkers followed closely behind him like a game of chicken-and-eagle.

Then he despaired at his conformation to stock stereotypical waiting scenes.

Then he despaired for this writer who seemed to be running out of ideas for conforming to the stock scenes of despair.

Then he paced in more circles because he wanted to.

Various sounds could be heard from inside the classroom. Unnatural sounds. Low grinding and rumbling.

Better not investigate. Ignorance is bliss. There is a saying that the more you know, the more you realize that you do not know. So in theory, in the logical reversal of the saying: the less you know, the more you will know. So the one who knows less, knows more.

Thus, it is always better not to know.

Chiri's sharp, penetrating voice could be held from inside now. The children must have freed her. Nozomu briefly wondered how the foreign children will cope with a fanatic Japanese-speaking teenager who insist on proper deeds and following the line.

There was a switch in Chiri's tone. Softer. Harder to catch. Very unlike Chiri.

After a while, the door finally opened and the two agents he hired stepped out. Both agents looked evidently tired out and somewhat twitchy. Behind them followed an uncharacteristically humble Chiri. Speaking in English. Not Japanese.

Even the story has yet to switch to the Japanese text that Mediaminer cannot render properly (which thus ruined the final punchline for chapter one there).

"Why not Japanese now?" Nozomu leaned forward to whisper to Chiri.

"They are non-Japanese. It is only polite and proper to communicate with them so," his fussy student replied, breaking back into character before returning to the out-of-character, fearful act.

Nozomu peeked into his classroom.

As good as new.

The stage-crew sure worked fast this time.

"We will be using Kitsu-san's home as our base for now," Arisa, evidently the more dominant of the two, said tiredly, worn out by their close encounter with the unreasonable type, "Can we hear about your issue?"

Nozomu nodded as he led everyone to his office. Two agents too young. One student too neurotic. One stalker too clingy. And the entire chain of stalkers too stalker-ly. Just more additions to his usual entourage.

* * *

As he followed the teacher to his office, Gabriel took note of the structure of the school. He took note of the route between the classroom to the office. He took note of the various personalities they past. Most importantly, he took note of the many followers behind them, shuffling and doing a bad job in concealing themselves from detection.

Before him, Nozomu just kept walking; oblivious or ignoring his pack of stalkers. The only other person who seemed aware of the many pathetic stalkers behind them was Arisa who kept looking back.

There was something wrong with this place.

He could just sense it.

Nozomu stopped and opened a sliding door. They had reached the office. An absolutely normal office if not for the mysterious, blanket-huddling girl with a supernatural aura around her siting in the corner of an otherwise unoccupied room. The members of the school greeted her and then treated her as yet another fixture of the room.

Just another one of the strange things in this school.

Gabriel let everyone, or rather, everyone he knew to be 'safe' into the room before slamming the door on the chain of stalkers. Then he went to take up seat.

Nozomu spoke, or rambled most enlighteningly about his despair. About everything that had taken place so far, from his capture by "higher-ups" (and this he said in a low, hush voice) to the order to conduct summer school. From the vehement protests from his students to the decision.

It was filled with wise insights and fitting analogies about society, the world and humanity. Everything was flawed and everyone was guilty in one way or another. It was almost a speech worth applauding.

"And so, I need you two to get us out," Nozomu finally concluded.

"What again?" It was Arisa.

"I do not want to hold summer school since I intend to return to my family home. My students all have other plans for themselves and thus do not wish to attend summer school. We want you to get us out of summer school."

Gabriel looked towards Arisa for her opinion. Her mouth was gap open, her eyes wide with disbelief and irateness.

Having no answer, Nozomu continued, "I need time to think about life. To despair over the tragic events that had occurred to all of us. I cannot do that if I need to conduct summer school."

Trying to keep her voice under control, Arisa spoke tensely while still maintaining an edge of irateness.

"And that is why you hired us, contract agents? To get you out of teaching summer school?"

"Yes."

There was when Gabriel noticed the tiny spark of flame at his god-sibling's trembling shoulder. His hot-tempered god-sister would not hold her temper for much longer. There was only so much ludicrousy she should take.

"Mr. Itoshiki, is that seriously all to why you need us here?"

"Yes."

And everyone else in the room, other than the two of them, nodded in agreement.

And that was when Arisa exploded.

* * *

An illuminated screen was the only source of light in the dark room. Numbers and words that did not mean anything to anyone were the only things that graced the screen. The purpose of the screen was only to illuminate and to look impressive. It cost the organization a million dollars to install it and had it show interesting, complicated stuffs on it. Nothing else.

After all, in this world of utter, dastardy villainy, what matters most was style. The occasional success was nice but how else could one better show off to another evil genius than having the darkest room with the most illuminating of screens.

There was a single round table in the center of the room and seated around it, many dark figures. The glowing green light from the illuminating screen casted all their masks with the color of green. It was quite disturbing. And the strange stench that plagued the room did not improve matters.

Not that the dark figures looked bothered. Assuming we can see their bothered looks through the darkness and behind those soulless masks.

The first one stood up and started to speak in a grave, booming voice that allowed us to identify this character as the mayor or grave booming voice™ from chapter one that tormented Nozomu with his unreasonably optimistic order.

"Is everything going according to plan?"

The second figure stood up. His voice somewhat sissy like but able to switch to a deep, stoic one.

"They have established contact with each other. The exchange will take place soon."

The rest of the dark figures clapped in approval. They looked burly, well trained and evil. Really evil. Some of them scare little children and kick cute fluffy kittens for a living and for fun. No doubt one of them would be highly adept in the art of silence. The 'silencer' as we had called him in chapter one.

However, who really played which role in chapter one was not really important. Unless revealed or hinted, neither were their names or physical characteristics important now. They are all interchangeable to the whims and fancies of this writer. All we need to know for now was that we are in the middle of a really evil meeting organization by a really evil group.

Someone who had evidently read before coming for the evil meeting asked.

"Did the girl really exploded? Itoshiki did not die since we are talking about him now but him being seriously injured would put a spanner towards the... conspiracy!"

And they all faced towards an imaginary camera to whisper loudly, "Conspiracy!" placing much emphasis on the hissing part of "cy". All part of being really evil.

"No," a really familiar silhouette answered, "Although it would make a really fine scene with the fire and all, the writer only meant 'exploded' metaphorically. To be more precise, Arisa lost her temper and started shouting loudly. Itoshiki ranted and groveled in despair. Gabriel had to calm her down and speak many things to her which we did not know for now. Then they agreed to do the mission of 'getting them out of summer school' provided that Itoshiki did something first."

It was too early to give the game away on the identity of our really familiar silhouette but he or she (aha! You think I will make a revealing mistake here?) had a center parted hairstyle.

"Itoshiki is to follow his orders and really act positive for one day. Which I think fell perfectly into plan, since it will only induce more despair from him. To our benefit and to the... conspiracy!"

"Conspiraccccyyyy!"

The day of living positively. It had a nice ring to it even if it did not sound particularly evil. It would make a nice sounding chapter title and fit with the over plan according to the murmurs of the evil unidentified villains in this evil meeting.

"It will not be long, desu," a random someone spoke, sounding horribly evil by tagging all his sentences with one of the most evil of all Wapanese words, "We have waited for four years to do this, desu. Soon the plan shall succeed, desu."

"Yes, nano desu," another spoke, not to be outdone in evilness, "All their bases will belong to us, nano desu."

Then the evil meeting finally concluded to assiduous applause, sinister sniggering, lengthy laughter, copious clapping, erratum alliteration, nyoron, ugu, kamo, de gozaru, nano and desu.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conspiracy has only just begun.

* * *

I am considering moving this story back and forth between the Nanoha and SZS fandom. Perhaps with the next chapter. Nothing against the site guidelines as far as I can see.

Oh, and to all my readers, thank you for reading.


	3. The Day of Living Positively

Against all signs that pointed towards a failure, the fic must go on! Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Burning Arisa are not the intellectual property of mine. Enjoy reading.

* * *

_** - The Day of Living Positively - **_

Just for one day.

That was the challenge.

Just for one day, think positive.

He did not even know why he took it up. It must be the fit of madness that he was occasionally prone to. Perhaps it was the blazing hot sun that would give you skin cancer if you-

No! Think positive! Now do it all over again.

He did not even know why he took it up. It must be the wave of euphoria that he occasionally experience. Perhaps it was the absolutely radiant, vitamin D-giving sun that day. It has all gone into his head. He would show them that he can think positive.

For one day. Just one day.

Itoshiki Nozomu, the form teacher of Class 2-A looked out of the beautiful, clean, clear window to see the blue, blue sky with all those melodiously singing birds fluttering around happily. It is a beautiful day! Nothing can ruin his wonderful, wonderful mood.

After all, it is only for one day.

That day, he tried to skip to school like how Kafuka did it. Step. Hop. Step. Jump. Turn. It is a beautiful spring day! Pink Gabriel looked absolutely majestic with its crown of pink cherry blossoms drifting lightly down the tree. The streets before him was covered with the layer of beautiful petals, crunching crisply as he stepped on them.

Beautiful! Beautiful! Beautiful!

There was only that much exclamation marks and usage of 'beautiful' before one gets tired of it. This might be one long day.

But it will be beautiful!

Pink Manager stood proudly aside from the cherry blossoms, the long (beautiful!) rope still hanging from it, swaying gently in the light, refreshing breeze. It was as though no one touched it since he had left it. Even the short, stout stool stood sturdily below the tree.

What a memory! Beautiful, just beautiful!

But for today, for one day, he will remove it.

Yes. He closed his eyes for a moment in deep, beautiful contemplation. He shall remove the beautiful noose he had prepared for himself.

Nozomu stepped forward and onto the short, stout stool. Placing his hands on the rope, tugging lightly at it to remove the rope from the tree, taking great care not to break any of the beautiful branches of Pink Manager.

It was tighter than he remembered. He leaned closer, the noose was almost around his head.

Ha ha! He chuckled to himself. It was almost as though he was going to do it!

NO! He was thinking positively. He was only removing the temptation for a day. Then tomorrow, he will return the rope to its original position, return to his daily routine of negative-optimism, maybe even make another futile attempt to end his sorrowful life on Earth.

But not today. Today, he will show them.

It was then the cooling, invigorating breeze blew. It was refreshing to the bones, swaying the leaves and cherry blossoms on the trees gently in the most beautiful, picturesque scene of a cherry blossom garden. Nevermind that cherry blossoms only bloom in spring and it was almost summer now.

The cooling, invigorating breeze also swayed the short, stout stool that Nozomu stood on as he tugged at the so beautiful noose with his neck so close to it. It was a short, brief, beautiful moment done only in silhouette and slow motion as Nozomu stumbled, falling head first into the noose into the position he had always wanted to be in...

Except not today.

For today, was to be the day of living positively.

* * *

In order to fully understand this scene, we would need a flashback. So that we know the context which Nozomu was attempting to go against his character by acting positive. By the good fortunes of his misfortunes, Nozomu was currently experiencing the part of the dying process known as 'life flashing past his eyes'. As good a flashback as you can get.

So let us dive in and update ourselves with what had happened so far.

* * *

"So spare me, oh mighty one! So save me, oh fiery one!"

Nozomu groveled before Arisa who had exploded. Not really exploded as in 'exploded', since that would deprive us of our heroine and would not be in good taste. Rather, she exploded into angry, frustrated rants and waving her broomstick threateningly.

Her god-brother, Gabriel was holding on to her shoulder, holding her back from causing massive, unnecessary injuries to our despair-deprived Teacher Despair. That would not be professional for them, contract agents.

Beside them, the students of Teacher Despair, those who were around showed no reaction, as though as they were used to it. Which they were.

"Arisa! Arisa! Calm down!" Gabriel held on to the raving girl while keeping a constant, strained smile to their contractee, "Now will you excuse us for a while?"

And so, he dragged his angry god-sister away from dealing harm, to a corner of the room to talk things over.

* * *

"We are not going to do this," Arisa snarled with all the fury of a child with dashed dreams, "His request is silly, this school is silly, everything has been a waste of time. I'm going to call Sameshima. After I get through with him." She pointed towards Nozomu, still on the ground in a traditional begging position.

Gabriel sighed. It was to be expected. Arisa had been looking forward to this so much and what they got was this silly, petty request. Even he found the 'mission' absurd, even if somewhat simple. But there was something else. The school. Something was going on here. Something not good.

However, he would have to convince his hot-tempered god-sibling to stay.

"This is our first contract," he tried unsuccessfully to sound enthusiastic, "We cannot back out of it."

"So you are now the one trying to convince me. They did deserve that punishment. Who have heard of a class permanently remaining at level two?" argued Arisa, still ready to explode once more.

"There is something on in this school. You can sense it, right?"

Arisa put her anger on hold for a moment to sense the 'something'. Fine, she could not really sense it but she knew what Gabriel was referring to. There was something to this school, something that could be the one causing all these madness.

"And so you intend to use the chance to investigate?" She took a glance towards their contractee, still on the ground. And took a further glance of suspicion at Chiri, the strange, bossy girl. "Or you just wanted to hang around longer?"

Gabriel paused. He did want to listen to more of Nozomu's 'wisdom'. He did want to stay around for a while longer for find out more.

"We can use the chance to investigate. If you hate his depressed outlook of life so much, why not just force him to act positive as part of the deal? If he succeeds, we help him," the wizard argued, not catching his god-sister's innuendo.

"That is quite illogical, isn't it?"

"No point agreeing just for the payout, right?"

* * *

"Isn't this my flashback? Why did my agents' point-of-view piece get inserted into my flashback? Even my own 'life flashing past my eyes' does not solely belong to me?" Nozomu wailed in despair over his lack of controls over his own memories.

"That's because it is only proper that the readers know what Gabriel-kun and Arisa-chan were talking about," Chiri explained, "Without these fore-knowledge, they would not be able to appreciate and understand the rest of the story."

"Why is fore-knowledge so important? Why can't a story or excerpt just stand out on its own?" Nozomu despaired in his groveling position, "People just assume that others have the necessary fore-knowledge to understand! And more often than not, others don't and that marred everyone's experience! These are all things that rely too much on fore-knowledge!"

Example → Required fore-knowledge

Contracts and Conspiracies (This story) → Movements (found in Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha section)

Running → Walking

Maths → More Maths

Reading → A language of choice

Now → History

History → More historical history

More historical history → Even more historical history

Amnesia? (Negima section) → Touhou/Scheme?/Who knows what else?

So I herd you liek Mudkips → 4chan memes/Twisted sense of humor

"As the old saying goes," Kino who had mysteriously appeared in the room, dressed in a plain white T-shirt, "Fap first, worry later. You can always try to enjoy the story for what it is first."

"Then what if it is a trap?"

"You mean like me?" Maria asked from above where she had been swinging on the lights all along.

"No, it has been established that the 'I am a boy' quote from you from that particular episode was because legally you are male since you bought your citizenship from a boy. But physically," Nozomu looked up to see her white panties, "you are definitely still a girl."

Returning back to the topic, Nozomu despaired once more about man's tendency to create things that require fore-knowledge to enjoy or operate. Knowledge begets knowledge. Everything is a never-ending cycle of knowledge requirements.

"Despair! The knowledge requirement for all things have left me in despair!" he cried, thus fulfilling the at-least-one-despair-rant quota for each chapter.

As if on cue to illustrate the symbolism of his rant, Matoi asked Komori, "I need a new piece of rope for Teacher."

"You can find it in the garden shed."

"The garden shed is too dark. I need a torchlight."

"You can find it at the storeroom."

"The storeroom is flooded. I need a pail."

"You can find it in the toilet over to the left."

"The toilet is too messy. I need a broom to clean up."

"You can borrow the broom from Teacher's agent over there."

"Alright. Thanks."

"No, wait," Nozomu interrupted, rubbing the bridge of his nose in thought, "Isn't the skit supposed to be circular in nature? As in Tsunetsuki-san will keep asking Kiri-san for things after things until she needs a rope again to do it."

"Does it have to?" the two girls looked at him, "And you are also using fore-knowledge to understand this little piece of action and Maria's piece just now."

Nozomu stopped. Oh my. Oh dear. All of a sudden, everything became clear.

Of course! Everything required fore-knowledge. Everyone have fore-knowledge. Enlightenment! Perhaps fore-knowledge would not be so bad. All he needs to do was to find out everything that was before everything that was before everything that was before everything...

An explosion. Not that by Arisa of course. But an explosion that shattered heavenly bodies and herald the start of everything. The beginning of everything. The ultimate of fore-knowledge...

Oh my. The Big Bang. It is so pretty...

"Mr. Itoshiki," Gabriel's voice cut Nozomu out of his never-ending drive for fore-knowledge and bringing him back in extra-fast rewinding speed to the present, "We have come to a decision."

"We will aid you in your... request," Arisa continued, her distaste for his simple request evident in her tone, "The fee will be standard and to be cashed to the Swiss account given later. And on one more condition."

"What?" Nozomu asked, somewhat dazed from his mental trip back in time but relieved that help was at hand, that his despair would soon be fulfilled.

"We need to observe your class and your lessons for at least a day. Tomorrow. And we want to see it conducted properly."

Then she said it fiercely and firmly, pouring every ounce of her distaste for weaklings into her words, to the shocked and exalted gasps of the students around Nozomu.

"You, sir, shall act positively. No despair. Just positive actions."

And to his own surprise and to everyone else's too, Nozomu answered.

"Sure."

* * *

There was still more to the flashback. But those are rather uninformative to us. After all, there are at least twelve more hours of life to flash before Nozomu's dying eyes, most of them of him tossing and turning in bed, trying to will himself to think positively. So let us leave him hanging on Pink Manager for now and move on to what happened between Gabriel, Arisa and Chiri as they attempt to settle for the night.

* * *

The room was spotless, sterile and clean. Everything was neat and perfectly packed. Books neatly stacked, bed properly made, clothes tidily folded and kept in the wardrobe. There were also things that one would associate with a proper teenage girl's room. Posters of the most recent pop stars stuck in exact uniform, perpendicular position to the wall, equidistant from each other. A Hello Kitty plushie placed at the corner of the bed. Cosmetics aligned according to length at the right side of the desk. A smoothly pressed, uncreased sailor uniform hung to the wall. Fashion magazines, all bundled up properly and kept under the bed.

Everything that was considered necessary to a growing teenage girl. Nothing more, nothing less. Except for the shovel with reddish-brown stains that looked like dried blood on it, shoved and hidden in the shadows underneath the bed.

"And this is my room," Chiri introduced with all the proper hospitality of a host.

Gabriel and Arisa nodded in appreciation as they carried their heavy luggage behind them.

"Moving on," Chiri led them down the corridor of the apartment she shared with her family, "This is our guest room and where the two of you will be sleeping for the rest of your stay here."

Mostly empty. No decorations whatsoever.

Just two conjoined traditional Japanese mattresses with a box of tissues at the head side.

"Oh," was the children's reply before they both moved their belongings into the now-occupied room.

"Oh?" Chiri's eyes narrowed in irritation while she stood at the hallway, "Is that all?"

"The room is very nice... very spacious... Thank you very much?" Gabriel hazarded a guess, watching for any change in reaction from their host. He was starting to grasp the trick to handling her... Just stick to the script (if there was one) or do whatever was expected.

"Aren't you two going to protest over the sleeping arrangements? The two of you being of the opposite sex and sleeping on a conjoined traditional Japanese mattress together?"

"That?" Arisa raised her head from unpacking her personal belongings, "Oh, that's not a problem. We have been through worse."

Gabriel nodded, recalling their one month experience in the Mahora Library Island. They had been through worse sleeping arrangements before. It was enough for them to appreciate the invention of the soft, fluffy mattress.

"Oh no," Chiri switched demeanor, "That is not the proper thing to say. Both of you should be protesting and resisting my arrangements since both of you are of the bipolar character type." The dark deadly aura that chilled their bones was around her again, prompting action from the hapless children.

"I will not sleep in the same room with him," Arisa said, trying to act as bipolar as she could to accommodate their host's proper ideals.

"You need to be more insulting and fiery while still having a hidden soft spot for him," Chiri encouraged.

"He is an idiot, an insensitive jerk and a crybaby!" Arisa continued in a louder voice. It was strangely liberating.

"Er.. You snore loudly; you are stupid and never think?" Gabriel tried, wondering at the back of his mind what did bipolar exactly mean.

"Not good enough. Check with Otonashi-san if you need advice."

A mobile message later, "Your liberal thinking does a disservice, not only to this debate, but to the entire concept of argument," Arisa read the message on her mobile phone word for word, "You, sir, are incapable of absorbing simple facts. Perhaps you would find it easier if you weren't wearing Mr. Osama bin Ladin's buttcheeks for earmuffs."

"That had nothing to do with me or this argument!," Gabriel protested, subconsciously feeling his ears for the earmuffs, "That had gone too far! I refuse to sleep in the same room with you!"

And he meant it.

"That's a stupid thing to say and you are a stupid person for saying it," Arisa continued reading. "And I, too refuse to sleep in the same room with you!" She took a glance to Chiri for affirmation.

Chiri was smiling with satisfaction of another cliché properly accomplished.

"I will take the sofa," Gabriel try to leave the room in a huff.

"That is not proper! As host, I will not allow it! You are to keep me, an unsuspecting innocent girl who had accidentally learnt about the secret world of magic under observation," Chiri stopped Gabriel in his path, having blocked the door to the guest room, "I will arrange for alternate sleeping arrangements. In my room."

With that, Gabriel found himself dragged into the sanitized, absolutely perfectly organized room by the surprisingly strong Chiri. Leaving Arisa surprised and stunned by the sudden change in outcome. This was not what she had expected.

Wasn't she the one who insisted that they quarrel and refuse to share the same room because it was not proper? Because it was not the proper way to do things? Arisa fumed to herself, well on the path of developing proper bipolar personality.

Fine, so be it.

Arisa crossed her arms and sat down on the mattress with a huff to consider the next move of the Agency. Judging from the situation, the Agency will not be seeing 'action'. Most likely, all they need to do was smuggle Mr. Itoshiki out and to his home outside the town. Something that they could easily accomplish even using only their non-magical resources.

That was no way of proving herself to her magical friends. Neither would it make a good previous record for the Agency. It was all a waste of time in her opinion.

However, there was the 'something' that Gabriel mentioned about the whole place. Unlike Gabriel, Arisa was not a full-fledged magic wielder. Her magical abilities were a result of hard training and practice. She can perform some magic, mainly those fire magic which she had some sort of affinity with. Other than that, she was as non-magical as the next civilian. She could not just sense magic in the air like he did. But even she could tell through observations that something was going on. Something that Gabriel felt they should investigate.

Or he could really be bluffing because he just wanted to stay around longer. Arisa could tell that her god-brother had taken great interest in all those depressed nonsense that Mr. Itoshiki spouted. His past had never truly left him and his inert guilt had made him susceptible to the overt expression of theatrical despair.

From beyond the thin walls of the guest room, she could hear Chiri bossing Gabriel around, forcing him to act in manners she felt was proper. For a while, Arisa felt something in her heart. Jealousy pangs although it would be too early for her.

For bossing and acting dominant around Gabriel was in her opinion, her job.

* * *

The clean room was an anti-thesis to Gabriel's traditional method of room maintenance. His philosophy towards rooms had been to simply stack anything stackable in a corner and anything not, under the bed. A clean room just lacked the human touch to it.

Chiri had personally arranged a mattress on the floor for him, taking great care to align the edges of it in equal distance to the desk and her own bed. It was as though there were grids on the floor which all objects must follow. The miscellaneous items that had to make way for the mattress had been neatly and carefully placed aside in a similar orderly fashion.

When she was finally done, she gave a satisfied sigh and a warm, genuine smile as she surveyed her handiwork. This girl, Gabriel observed, was really quite attractive. From her long, silky straight hair with the carefully center-parted fringe to her face and body that adhered to the general standards of beauty. If only she did not have that demanding personality and obsession with proper procedures.

"Now, tell me about yourself," the elder girl said naturally as she sat down on her bed.

"No," he replied just as naturally, conscious of revealing more than he should.

"According to standard scenes in fiction such as this, the boy will reveal his heartfelt secrets to the older girl. I am playing the role of big sister here. So tell big sister about the problems of your heart."

"I've never heard of it."

"But that is how it is. So what plagues your heart or mind? You always look somewhat far away, as though there was something else of concern to you."

"I... I'm not telling," Gabriel hesitated, thinking about what Chiri had just said before continuing in defiance, "What makes you think I do?"

"Ah... the pause," Chiri clapped her hands together as she bounced lightly on her bed, acting the role of concerned and slightly playful big sister perfectly, "And the defiant resistance. You are doing it properly. But as concerned and slightly playful big sister, I will not force you to tell. I'm sure you will tell me properly eventually, probably before this story is over."

"What story?"

"It's only proper for girls to keep secrets," Chiri winked mischievously as she placed her finger on her lips, doing the hush symbol, "Even your sister will have some from you."

"She is not really my sister."

"And I have just learnt something from you. Then again, given the nature of anime-based fiction, even if she is, she would not remain so for long," Chiri stood up and took our her pyjamas from the wardrobe.

"It is only proper to have something teasing here for the readers, right? Please turn away while I change," she said without bothering if Gabriel understood it, "Don't you dare peek!"

"And you should try because it is what the male characters do if caught in this situation," she added softly.

Gabriel wouldn't of course. It was in his opinion, not proper; though the rustling of cloth, the light flopping sound of clothes landing on the floor, the sound of fastening zippers left enough to his imagination.

The story. Anime-based fiction. Chiri had mentioned them so casually. What could it mean?

"You can relaxed now," Chiri said as she walked towards the light switch, properly dressed in an over-sized, baggy pyjamas of epic cuteness. It was the signal for bedtime. "Not changing before sleeping?"

"I'm used to it," Gabriel replied gruffly, feeling his thick robe before he laid down on the mattress. Thoughts swam inside his mind as he tried to make understanding of all the things he had learnt.

With luck, it would contribute towards his final efforts.

"Then good night," Chiri said as she switched off the lights and went to bed.

"And don't you dare fall asleep when you are supposed to be watching me," she added firmly.

One can sense auras but to actually see them require certain special magic. However, since the lights were switched off, darkness was already everywhere. It did not take much of a leap in imagination for Gabriel to visualize the dark, dangerous aura rising from the teenage girl's lying form.

And so Gabriel truly did not dare to fall asleep. That was, until sleep caught up with him instead.

* * *

Gurgle, gurgle, gurgle went Nozomu as the rope strained on his neck and froth threaten to spill from his soundlessly screaming mouth. Quite an unpleasant sight for us to return to the present to and would be a depressing thing if not for the fact that today was the day of living positively.

He was finally coming near to the end of his 'life flashing past his eyes' stage of dying. In fact, he was at the part where he was walking down the beautiful cherry blossom garden, trying to step, hop, step, jump, turn like Kafuka. As he watched, Nozomu came to a conclusion that he just could not do the step, hop, step, turn as sprightly and lightly as his over-optimistic student.

If she was here, she would have think him to be trying to grow taller. Nozomu prepared for the end of his flashing life. At least, he would be going off positively. Not exactly the way he had imagined the end to be but not exactly a bad way to go.

If only. If only the writer had been more sympathetic to him rather than his agents. If only the writer had spent more time on him hanging in futile struggle against the fatal (but beautiful!) rope and given him a longer, a more eloquent soliloquy fit for a male lead before his end. There was so many more things to do.

So many more things to despair about.

One final tear of regret. Regret of not been able to completed his final challenge of living positively.

One final tear of regret flowed down his pale, life-choked cheeks and fell poignantly to the ground.

Along with the rest of his body as the rope snapped almost magically.

The tear landed with an almost silent splash, just like his almost silent plead for help.

His body landed with just a loud, un-poetic thud.

"Teacher," Chiri's sharp voice rang out in annoyance, "It is not proper for you to die now. The day is hardly over, let alone the story."

Nozomu rubbed his sore neck. He rubbed his sore bum and he rubbed his shoulders in comfort. Then he cried, "What if I had really died?"

"What if you had really died?"

Behind Chiri stood his agents. Both of them dressed in more normal clothings. The girl, Arisa was the one who spoke. Dressed in a white school dress with a sailor uniform top, she snarled in apparent disgust over the cowardice of suicide.

Gabriel yawned beside her as he pocketed something; his crumpled white shirt half-tucked into his dark trousers in an apparent show of his exhaustion. Both Chiri and Arisa frowned at his blatant display of unprofessionalism. For a while, Nozomu wondered what had happened the previous night.

Straightening his hakama, Nozomu cleared his throat and closed his eyes for inspiration. Then he said, "What a beautiful day! It is a good day not to die. Thank you. It was only an accident."

Arisa stared in suspicion.

"Look at the majestic, beautiful tree! Pink Manager, it is called. And that is Pink Gabriel (not named after you!), the pink cherry blossoms like the wings of the angel!" Nozomu pranced around the pathway, scattering the fallen cherry blossom petals on the ground, "And that is the treasure trove for the homeless." He quoted his infamously optimistic student.

"That is only a dustbin."

"But a beautiful treasure trove it is! Beautiful! Simply beautiful!" he skipped, hopped and stepped around his student and agents, "It is a beautiful day! I am thinking positive! Really positive! These are beautiful trees! This is a beautiful pathway made with beautiful concrete! You are all beautiful!"

"I'm sure thinking positive did not meant over liberal abuse of 'beautiful'."

"What a beautiful criticism! I will despair if not for today being the day of living positively. Because I need you to get me out of here! Beautiful!" he took Arisa's hand, "Beautiful!" he took Chiri's hand. "Beautiful!" Nozomu sang out-of-tune and blasphemously out-of-character.

Before he could burst into a positive, rousing solo about the beauty of beauty, the school bell rang from afar. It was almost time for class and he was late.

Him! The teacher! That would set a bad example and would not be positive!

Like clockwork, Chiri took a piece of toast from her bag and placed a corner of it in her mouth. Adopting the proper running pose for energetic but late schoolgirls, she started to sprint towards school.

"Aren't you going to run too?"

Arisa and Gabriel did not run. They were not students of this school after all. They stood beside Nozomu, waiting for his next action. Arisa with a look of suspicion and skepticism and Gabriel looking just tired and stifling yet another yawn.

"Why, yes! I must act positive!" Nozomu laughed in forced optimism, "But as with thinking positive, I will not be late. But I will run anyway!"

So he ran. Exhausted from his unfortunate failure in dying and acting all positive against his natural disposition to despair. He would be very depressed now if it had not been his must to act positive.

"One more stupid, ridiculous act of your despair and I'll cancel the contract!" Arisa's threat waived to his ears.

With his heart pressing for despair but his will forcing himself to think positive, leaving his two agents standing on the beautiful cherry blossom covered pathway, Nozomu ran and ran towards his school for the rest of the day of living positively.

* * *

The construction team was still moving the large sign that said 'Ansem Man High School' into position when Nozomu stepped into the classroom. He tried to maintain a light bouncy touch to his step as he walked towards his desk and slammed his hands on his desk. "I need more reviews and readership" was scrawled onto the blackboard behind him for no apparent reason.

"Class," he announced, sweeping his eyes across the class, taking the attendance mentally. A task that was really quite simple considering the number of students he had that was actually named.

"Class, today we shall learn civics," Nozomu announced, picking up his book, "Please turn to page twenty and we shall pick up where we left off the last time."

A painfully raised bandaged hand.

"Teacher," Abiru asked, staring at her teacher with both her clear, endearing blue eyes, "What about our everyday lessons of depressing reality?"

"Ah," Nozomu ah-ed, "I see you are not informed about what happened yesterday. Today, as part of my deal with my agents, I am to act positively. So I shall not be preaching despair but spreading positivity today. And we shall learn about civics."

He looked to the back of the class. Both his agents were already seated comfortably at the back. Gabriel snoozing quite peacefully on his desk too. How they managed to enter when he was sure he was faster than them and did not notice their entrance after him was a mystery to him. Though not too much a concern.

If they can sneak around so quietly like that, they must be elites. They will be able to save his and everyone's summer. So that they could be free to do what they want, like be in despair.

Good positive thoughts.

"Brother Dear, do you mean we will actually act as a normal class today?" his sister, Rin, unparalleled expert of all traits, questioned.

"Yes, I shall be conducting class normally today!" Nozomu answered to the murmurs of his students, "So Hito-san, would you please read the page?"

"So you are assuming that I am normal?" wailed his chosen student normally like any normal student would protest over being called normal.

More normals wails against the biased narrative.

"You should try and sue him for libel. I can recommend a lawyer to you," Kaere whispered into her ears.

Due to her still flipping through her book on pop-cultural insults, Meru was unable to provide another of her cutting-edge mobile message insults in time. However, you will be sure that she would come up with something in due time. It was the policy of this writer to use Meru as a platform to make as many obscure but witty pop-cultural insult reference as possible.

In fact, one google search by the writer later, Nozomu's mobile phone vibrated in anticipation of the incoming Meru-trademarked insult.

"_Worth: Just because you are necessary, doesn't mean you are important."_

With cries of apologies, Ai ran out of the classroom again.

"That was fast," Chiri commented when the antics finally died down, "Almost everyone who had antics to be done to represent their presence had done their trademark moves in proper manner already."

"It had to be fast," Nozomu explained, "Despite the title, the writer wasted over up to forty percent of the word count for this chapter on flashbacks of yesterday. Now we had to go through our lessons quickly so that the chapter can end in an appropriate word count."

There was a brief flash of black and white. It was enlightenment.

"Des-

Nozomu felt a chill as Arisa's stare bored from the back of the class. He had almost did it; almost gone back into character. He was supposed to act positive.

"Des- what?" his de-facto class monitor, Chiri of the proper procedures questioned, "Please complete your sentence! It is making me irritated!"

"Chiri-chan!" Kafuka sang cheerfully, "I am sure that Teacher would have something wonderful, something great to pass on to us. He is only just thinking of how to thread his pearls of wisdom together for us! Right, Teacher?"

Arisa continued to stare from behind his students, waiting for him to make a false move before she cancel the contract.

Des-what? Destruction? Desolation? Destitution? Need something more positive ringing. Need... Need... Need! Another wave of inspiration swept him away.

"Desire! Hope, beauty and the writer's natural inability to allocate word count have left me with desire!"

"Oh really?" Matoi whispered hoarsely into his ears and placed her hands into his hakama, caressing his under-developed, imperfect chest.

"Yes, really," Nozomu repeated, trembling slightly as Matoi started to nibble at his ears, "I am with desire. But please, this is not an 'M' rated fic and there are minors present."

He looked towards Arisa for a reaction. A heavy tint of flushing red on her face as she tried to look away. Gabriel, being asleep, was missing out on the action. Too bad for the screen time hogging, original hero. It was time for Nozomu to get his screen time due.

"The writer had spent more words on yesterday than today, which should focus on me! My important chapter of me acting positively instead of negatively. It is leaving me wanting for more! I want more time! More word count! More screen time! More manly, epic action! It has left me with desire!"

"Well spoken, Teacher," Kafuka, ever so happy praised, "People always want things; people are always in desire! Deny them and they will desire more! Give them and they will still desire more!"

She stood on her desk and raised her hands towards the sky, avoiding Maria's swinging legs. "Desire is what makes the world go round! Desire! Matoi-chan desires Teacher! Mayo-chan desires recognition! Abiru-chan desires tails! Chiri-chan desires perfection! And Teacher," she looked towards him like a preacher of hope, "desires despair!"

"Everyone has a desire! You, me," and Kafuka pointed towards his contract agents, "them too. The secret of understanding the world would be to understand the desire of everyone because desire gives hope and drive to everyone!"

Nozomu was getting the nagging feeling that Kafuka was stealing the screen time that he 'desired' but a look at Arisa's awed face convinced him to let his dangerously optimistic student continue.

"Desire!" she cried like a messiah, "I am left with desire! We are left with desire!"

"By the way," Kafuka added as an after note to her speech, "The hiragana for despair is 'zetsubou' as we know but do you know that if you do not change the kana of 'ze' and retain it as 'se', you get 'setsubou'! Which means 'earnest desire'! There is desire in despair!"

Remember that. Because it will come in useful in later chapters.

Ignoring Matoi's actions on him, Nozomu stepped forward to reclaim his screen time. It was his day of living positively.

"Yes! Oh beautiful, positive desire! Knowing the desire of others gives you power of them! Ignore their desire and you will be ignored faster than this particular non-romance, non-smut fanfic!"

A raised hand.

It was Arisa.

"Do you mean that if I know someone's desire, I can become closer to them?"

"But don't forget your own desires!" Nozomu said, resisting the urge to break into despair rants about the new topic instead, "Matching desires will work best!"

Arisa sat back quietly, thoughtful and mumbling to herself.

Nozomu reflected on how tiring to speak in exclamation marks for a while. Then he continued his lesson while adding plentiful of 'beautiful', 'positive' and 'desire' into it. Anything for salvation. Anything for the desire of despair.

With the fictional acceleration, the day of living positively would soon end. Once so, it would be time to make his escape into the freedom of despair.

That was probably the only genuine positive thought he had for the entire day.

* * *

He laughed maniacally. For that was what villains do.

"Do you have to do that?" someone complained from behind, "We are trying to watch the live feed at the moment and your maniacal laughter is distracting us."

On the screen, Nozomu was teaching about the importance of desire to the class. The class listening attentively and Gabriel still snoozing. It was not easy to tell but Nozomu did not look very happy despite the positivity of his lesson or day. His level of despair was rising and it was all going according to plan.

Everything going according to the conspiracy.

He laughed maniacally again in devious defiance. For that was what deviously defiant villains do.

"How are our agents?" he who has yet to be named demanded answers to his question. Neither can we see his features since we are once again, back in this dark, evil room filled with evil, evil villains of all sorts. There was that stench in the air again and everyone was wearing those horrible, white and red masks over their face.

"Our agents had successfully infiltrated the classroom and are working constantly behind the scene to move the story in our benefit. One of them is currently providing us with the live feed we are watching now."

The speaker adjusted his thick, round glasses and peered at his clipboard. If only, he wished, they would install more lighting and do away with their silly, stinking rituals. He was not particularly evil but as a hired administrator, he was only doing his job. That made him really quite evil.

"Great!" Maniacal laughter laughed again. He was really evil, for he was the one who started the 'desu' trend in the previous chapter. It did not work out as well as he hoped but there was no denying that that was evil, "What is your name again?"

"I believe I was not named yet. None of us is since we have all been identified by voices so far."

Murmurs of agreement. Grave booming voice™, sissy/stoic voice, silencer... none of them had names yet. It was very distressing and not evil for them not to have names.

"We need names! We desire more than just vocal recognition!" Maniac laughter laughed.

"The writer does not wish to spend too much time with names!" Someone said.

"Then we will defy the writer and name ourselves instead!" Devious defiant maniacal laughter roared, "We are evil! Rules do not matter! I shall be the Leader!"

"That's not a proper name."

"But rules do not matter!" The Leader, previously maniacal laughter, said, "I am the leader; I am evil; so I shall be the Leader with a capital L!"

"You are the Administrator!" he pointed to the Administrator who nodded meekly.

"Mayor!" Previously Grave booming voice™.

"Communications!" Previously sissy/stoic voice.

"Silencer!" No reply from the Silencer.

"And now that everyone has a name, we are truly evil!" The Leader laughed again.

"You mean that all these while there was only five of us here? I got the sense that there were more."

"All our field agents are on the ground now. We have more cannon folder goons outside. The number has never been specified but in this dark room of evil, there has always been us five! The chief executive committee of The... Conspiracy!"

_Conspiraccccccyyyy!_

"Now we shall continue to observe through the live feed provided by our agents our progress. We need Itoshiki to be in as much despair as possible, which is rather easy. The greater your hope, the harder you fail and the more in despair you get. And then, for our second target..."

All eyes focused at their second target, the second key to their ultimate success in the conspiracy. The overhead footage of the young boy with a troubled heart sleeping as peacefully as the calm sea before the storm.

* * *

He was dreaming.

He was sure of it. It was a dream that he had so many times for the last four years.

However, as dreamlike as it was, it was once a reality and it was just as real as it was in the past.

He was not present when it occurred but it did so because of his actions. And that would always weigh on his conscience.

The screams of three hundred deaths.

And the single quiet moment when all his plans failed, him unable to do anything out of pure shock and his mother's death.

"Wake up," she shook his shoulder, "Mr. Itoshiki's class is finally over. His day of living positively is coming to an end."

Gabriel opened a single bloodshot, sleepless eye.

Arisa was standing over him with her trademark fuming look. She was fulfilling his mother's last wish just as he was. Around them, the rest of the class had either left or was leaving. Nozomu was still cleaning off the random pleads for reviews that kept appearing on the blackboard.

Chiri had left for club activities first. They would be meeting up again later.

"We need to plan. Or at least, we could use a plan to get Mr. Itoshiki out of this town and back to his."

"And that," Gabriel lifted a single finger to interrupt, "would still leave them with the problem. We need to get the class promoted too so that the higher ups, as he calls them, would have no reason to go after him."

"And so what do you suggest?" His god-sister questioned, "Despite rumors of those underaged teachers elsewhere, I don't think either of us are qualified to teach high school."

"Why not change the records?"

They turned to see the boy besides them. He had already changed out of his school uniform to a shirt of plain blue. There were more students beside him. The injured girl, the swinging foreign girl, Mr. Itoshiki's sister, the girl with large, evil eyes and the matured-looking one with a short ponytail.

"Kuniya. Kuniya Kino," the boy introduced himself.

"Is it me or is the class over in balanced in favor of girls?" Gabriel blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Was her injury the result of our black hawk crash yesterday?" was Arisa's first, her finger pointed towards the girl with bandages all over her body.

"It's only a matter of fictional preference. And no, we think it is," the boy lowered his voice, "domestic abuse. But don't mention it to her."

He rose up again to address the two contract agents, "We think that you should consider going after our records to amend it, thus promoting us to the next grade."

He pointed towards Arisa, "You can stay to change our records while he," the boy pointed at Gabriel, "can accompany Teacher on his escape to his hometown."

"That's quite well-planned," Gabriel replied, thinking something else at the back of his mind, "So have you arranged for all the necessary transportation and equipments?"

"Now that you have said it, yes," the teenage boy answered with a smile, "Everything prepared to help you save our summer." Behind him, the students murmured in agreement.

Gabriel arched an eyebrow but said nothing. He had been part of a really well-planned plot before. It did not went well.

"Very well," his god-sister said confidently, "We shall think about it. Thank you."

"No, we should thank you," the teenage boy replied, "Your help had been necessary for what we want. Everything is ready to go. We hope for a favorable response tomorrow." He turned around and left the classroom, followed by the rest of his group. There were murmurs of 'going to the beach' before returning home.

"And so?" Arisa turned back to Gabriel who had returned his sleepy head to the desk.

"We think about it," he answered without any commitment, "We think about it."

It wasn't long before Chiri returned from her club activities with an air of satisfaction on her. Another day of proper procedures done properly. The tea ceremony was something that require precise movements and delicate actions; that made it such a suitable club activities for her.

As they returned back to 'base', Gabriel thought about 'it', Arisa thought briefly about 'it' and Chiri acted the role of concerned and slightly playful big sister. The three of them framed properly by the setting sun, leaving Nozomu still scrubbing futilely but positively at the blackboard of words.

And that marked the end of the day of living positively. Tomorrow would be a brand new day; a brand new perfect day to bring a start to the plot and the great escape.

* * *

Thank you for reading. If you have read this, you are 5 percent of my total readership and thus considered a majority stakeholder. If you review, you will be almost 30 percent and thus gets to order my poor suffering plotbunny along.

I still need a good beta. Really.


	4. So has the action finally started?

I know. I know. I have finally come around to completing this chapter. Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Burning Arisa does not belong to me. If you do not know what is Burning Arisa, go google it. She is awesome Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha-based doujin character.

* * *

**_ - So has the action you promised me finally started? - _  
**

The day of living positively. Ha!

Meru sneered internally as she walked down the narrow street that led to her home; her mobile phone with those numerous dangling straps tightly in her hand.

What a joke! What a simpleton! What an utter failure in acting positively! Those messages about desire, a whole lot of hot air! She would not think Teacher was capable of keeping quiet, let alone living positively.

Walk down the street she did, as she conjured marvelous, venomous and vulgar insults and taunts at Nozomu and the rest of the class in her head. If only the writer had not insist on using choice geek-culture reference for her text messages. Oh how wild and vexed those two puny agents will be at the onslaught of uncultured, fully loaded words.

Conveniently forgetting the fact that she was no larger than them children, Meru approached her home. Her house, from the distance and to the distant protest of Nami (who was quickly corrected since it referred not to her but to Meru's house [not to say that she isn't normal]), normal.

Confidently, as confidently as a girl whose loudest scream for help was but a mere pathetic squeak, Meru approached her home. Opening her gate, unlocking her door, thinking of having a relaxing bubble bath to soothe her body. She would not be having that become a reality any moment soon.

"Are you Otonashi Meru?"

Meru turned back to face two faceless persons. They had to be persons. They got the four limbs, strong and bulky looking; the large, muscular bodies dressed in black business suits; the head still attached to the thick, short neck with bulging veins.

They were humans, just without faces.

Instead, where the facial features should be was a mask of deathly white with rectangular slits for eyes and mouth. And as though they mourned what they knew was to happen, red streams of tears were painted flowing from the eyes to their mouth.

And they stunk of pee.

Our petite heroine of this excerpt made a constipated squeak of fear as she tried to hold her breath. It was too obvious that they meant bad news. Really bad news.

"Squeaks, doesn't verbally speak, ponytails, small," one of them faceless fellows consulted a photo from his chest pocket, "It is her."

Meru had never heard a voice so cold and devoid of personality before. Then she noticed that she was hearing no other voices. The neighborhood tended to be noisy at this time of the day. Children playing in the streets, housewives gossiping across fences, her mother welcoming her precious pipsqueak back home.

Now, there was no one else except her and the two faceless fellows standing under the setting sun.

Sensing the worst, Meru stuck her keys into the door and scrambled into the house. Just in time too. The faceless ones had started to move towards her; their rough, crass hand brushing against her uniform as she made it through the door for safety.

Slamming the door behind her, she hurriedly locked it, chained it and slammed her back against it. For the next few minutes, she could feel the pounding of fists on the door, stronger and stronger. Genuinely praying for the first time of her life, Meru kept her light weight against the door, hoping against all odds that it would hold. It was the best she could do; she was simply not strong enough to move furnitures and anything more.

The pounding stopped.

Silence.

Was it over?

She kept her position. Quiet. Not daring to make a single noise. For the next few minutes, she sat quietly, keeping her negligible weight on the door, holding her breath until she was certain the coast was clear. The silence maintained. Then gingerly edging herself up, Meru peeped through the peephole.

Only to see a single, maniacal eye staring back into the hole from outside.

She squeaked in shock and fear, falling backwards while the pounding started again, stronger and fiercer. Then with some clicking and clacking, fingers lifted the letter flap of the door from outside and one of them peered in.

Beyond the eye holes of the mask, Meru could finally see the human eyes of the fellow. Wide, wild and wicked.

"Don't try to resist; don't try to run. This simple door will not hold us back, little girl and no one will help you," the attacker sang in mock friendliness. He giggled. Then he laughed in loud, wicked bouts as his partner attacked the door with increasing ferocity.

To the disquieting sound of gleeful laughter, Meru finally shook herself out of her petrified position and ran. It was merely delaying the inevitable and there was no where else for her to run but it was all she could do.

And behind her, the hinges of her door started to shake with each impact.

* * *

The door opened after the light rapping and Chiri entered with a plate of fruits. They had just finished dinner with her and her family. Now, the two sole agents of the Bannings Agency were resting back in the guest room, planning about what was to happen next.

From his slouched position, Gabriel shook his leg as he considered the next option. Besides him, his god-sister was blistering with impatience. She wanted action and she wanted it soon. Yet, Arisa too knew that this unfortunate first mission for her brainchild agency would not see much action.

The plan. The so-conveniently pre-arranged plan the students had done for them. It was really logical if you think about it and most likely it would work. The decision then would be: should they followed the plan.

It did feel too good to be true. Everything seemed as though it had been prepared right from the start and someone was manipulating everyone's movement from behind the scene. Once bitten, twice shy. He had swore that it would never happen to him again.

Of course, Arisa just wanted to get everything done and completed as soon as possible.

"Here," Chiri knelt down, playing the role of humble, hospitable host, "have some fruits."

Taking the sliced apple, Gabriel chewed quietly in thought. Arisa ate hers hurriedly, anxiously. Chiri, immaculate perfectionist she was, ate hers in small, delicate bites, each one chewed and swallowed properly. Then she retreated to read a book, or at least a comic she had gotten.

Negi Magi Magister, the title.

"We do it," Arisa finally declared as she put down her toothpick, "We take the help those students offered and finished this once and for all."

"Oh," Gabriel mumbled in nonchalant reply.

"Yeah, oh," the hot-tempered child grumbled, her little pigtails bouncing angrily at the sides of her head, "Nothing to be excited about. Just a simple job. Nothing to show or boast about."

"You don't find it suspicious?"

"Yes. Everything is suspicious about this place, this town, especially the school. Which is why I want to finish up and get done with it," Arisa threw her hands up in exasperation.

Gabriel thought so. There was no real reason for them to stay longer in this town. Since she wanted to go with the plan, why not? He was not particularly enthusiastic about the whole mission or agency in the first place; part of him was glad that Arisa was feeling the same way. But then there was the whole uneasy feeling he couldn't shake off.

The thought was broken by a simple ringing sound. Excusing herself, Chiri picked up her mobile phone and stared at the incoming message. She frowned in annoyance before tapping her reply back furiously, punctuating the air with beeps and boops.

"Something improper?" the boy asked.

Chiri nodded as she set down her mobile phone.

"Just a little issue, nothing much."

* * *

_HELP EVIL MEN ARE AFTER ME_

_BITCH_

Evidently, even when danger was close, old habits die hard.

It was dark in the closet but it was the best place she could find at the moment. She could hear the crashing door as the men finally broke in; their heavy, smug footsteps as they strode around her house without care or concern; the taunts they threw at her to jeer her into revealing herself.

Make no noise. Don't move. Don't alert them. Get help.

How?

The comforting feel of plastic, rubber and metal in her hand.

Her mobile phone. Her only way of communicating for help.

Who could she trust to send for help?

Chiri. Her bitchy, nosy classmate would do things properly. She would call the police or something. Anything as long as she could be safe.

Footsteps approaching. Slow and deliberate. They were in no hurry, no problem. The men were confident. They knew they had cornered her. It was only a matter of searching the house. No matter how small or midget-like Meru was, there was only that many places she could hide in her own house. They got all the time in the world.

Meru couldn't risk taking a peek. Just keep quiet and hope. She could feel the stepping sound outside the room loud enough, close enough.

"Here, little, little girl. Come to us," the masked man taunted as the sound of overturned items crashing to the room by sweeping rough, thoughtless arms continued.

Hush. Stay calm. Or failing that, at least panic in silence.

"Mail! Mail!"

Meru dropped her vibrating mobile phone in shock, before scrambling to silence it. It was too late. There was a sudden pause of activity, then the noise renewed with fury. Approaching her hiding place. Closer. And closer.

To say that, assuming Meru can say it out despite her lack of a voice actress, 'This had better be good' would be an understatement. Meru quickly opened the newly arrived message on her mobile.

From Chiri:

_Use proper punctuation when messaging! It irritates me!_

She should have expected that. It was a running joke from her first interaction with her strict proper classmate in the manga. She should have expected the writer who had ran out of jokes, despite a hiatus for a couple of months, to re-use that.

This was not time for jokes! The joke was not even funny! This chapter was not supposed to be funny. It was supposed to be tense! Didn't the title say 'action'? The vocally-challenged girl screamed abuse internally in fear and anger. This was not even time to relax or laugh! The cruel, evil footsteps were approaching, gaining in speed and urgency. They had guessed her location. Her time was up.

There was just enough time to bring up another number to her mobile phone. A number that she had recently messaged.

The door to the closet was torn open, flooding florescent light into the insides of the closet, blinding her. Meru pressed the call button just as her vision finally returned to her.

The two men in masks stood before her, leering mockingly through those white, cruel masks. They made no move towards her.

They did not need to.

She had been caught.

* * *

Arisa placed her mobile phone closer to her ears, trying to catch for any sound. Shuffling. Dragging. Bumps and thumps. A particularly loud thud as the phone at the other side fell to the ground.

Then the line went dead.

Strange call. Arisa took a look at the number that had called her. It had belonged to the minute girl who insulted her parents via messaging. Perhaps it was a prank call. It did seem like the thing that the electronically sharp tongued girl might do. What was her name? Arisa did not recall catching it.

"Is it Sameshima?" Gabriel asked from his corner.

She shook her head, looking at the number again, "Just a prank call, I think. From that midget who insulted us the day before."

"Otonashi Meru?" Chiri interrupted, "That is not fitting of her character trait. She is not supposed to speak. I will have to give her a proper lecture tomorrow."

"No. There was no speech..." Arisa said as she pocketed her mobile phone, "Just some random sounds. Something was happening..."

"What is her character trait?" Gabriel asked, propping himself up.

"She is shy and cannot talk in person but sends vicious, insulting messages through her mobile phone," Chiri explained as she showed them her own mobile phone, "Usually in improper punctuation and grammar. It irritates me so much." the prim girl added.

Gabriel and Arisa shifted themselves to take a closer look at the screen of the phone. Chiri had brought up a sample of Meru's messages on it. The most recent one she had.

_HELP EVIL MEN ARE AFTER ME_

And Arisa could not help notice the second phrase that was added almost like an afterthought.

_BITCH_

That was not the point anyway. Arisa ran through the information in her head. 'Evil men' after Meru. A phone call with nothing but the sound of shuffling, dragging and such... As though someone on the other end of the line was captured and dragged away... A call for help?

Like a coiled spring under the pressure of inactivity and non-excitement, she sprung into action.

Someone (probably) needs saving and they are on the job.

"Chiri-san, do you know Meru's address?" Arisa could feel the adrenaline rush in her as she prepared for action. Finally! Some possibility of action! Not boring whines of despair. No sitting in classroom settings. Time to save someone! Get ready! Her katana. She ran towards her custom made katana-broomstick she had left leaning against the wall.

With a sigh of tiredness, her brother extracted his wand from his pocket. He could guess what she had in mind. Pointing the wand towards his staff in a swift, snapping action, his staff came flying into his waiting hand.

Show-off.

Arisa huffed in scorn as she opened the window, ready to leave in her school uniform.

"No special outfit?"

It came almost as a growl from behind them.

The two children turned back.

Chiri towered over them, glowering in disapproval. And the aura, the unseen but strongly felt aura of violence, malice and painful death.

"Both of you are technically magical boys and girls and you don't have transformation or special outfits. That is so improper," she spoke slowly, veins of irritation and annoyance visible on her forehead.

"But I can fly," Gabriel replied hastily.

"But you can fly," the elder girl repeated with deliberate drawl.

"We can change along the way," Arisa suggested hesitatingly, looking towards Chiri with hope.

"I will not expect something half-done; you will either not go or go in full magical dress; nothing or all."

The boy sighed before he pointed his wand towards his luggage. With a simple magical command, his robe, filled with various equipments inside came flying into his open arms. Draping the robe over his civilian outfit, he was complete in his dark wizardry outfit. Ready for magical action and more importantly, looking the part.

Arisa rolled her eyes. Show-off. Though she would like to be able to do that too.

"What about you?"

Chiri continued to glower at her, impatient with her lack of magical transformation.

"I can't really transform magically..." Arisa pleaded. Seeing no good response from their insistent host and under the sympathetic look of her god-sibling, she stormed towards her own luggage and took out the outfit. The designer outfit which she had chosen as her official costume.

A quick dash into the bathroom and back, she emerged in her magical outfit, somewhat disheveled due to her hastiness. Adjusting her loose-fitting gloves and tucking the scarf in, she took up the broomstick again and faced her appraiser.

Chiri the perfectionist tilted her head and frowned.

"That is not very magical. I was expecting exploding clothes, tastefully-done bright light and materializing outlandish outfit."

"We can deal with that properly later," Gabriel interrupted, "It is not proper to delay our actions any further." Placing extra emphasis on 'proper'.

"Oh yes," the older girl answered, "We can deal with that properly later..." She nodded in thought.

After receiving directions from their host, the boy mage put a foot onto the window ledge to prop himself up. Then supporting himself, he pushed himself upwards, diving out of the window.

With a shocked gasp of seeing someone apparently making a leap of faith into the air, Chiri dashed towards the window. Arisa did not bother; she had seen him done that many times.

Seconds later, Gabriel hovered into view, balancing himself precociously on his staff, leaving just enough space at the hind end of the staff for one more person. Excusing herself, Arisa lifted herself up from the window ledge and made her own leap of faith.

Trust. That was the most important part of this move. She could not exactly fly despite the broomstick disguise she had for the katana. She would have to trust in her god-brother.

Reaching out her hand, Arisa felt Gabriel grab onto it and gripped her tightly; his staff taking a dive in altitude due to the sudden increase in weight, slowing down her fall before halting. No matter how many times they had done it, she still felt the sudden gush of fear before Gabriel was able to get their descend under control. Then Gabriel pulled her up onto what space he had left on the staff.

Gripping the thick staff tightly, Arisa balanced herself on it as Gabriel struggled to bring the staff back into proper flight position. One last confirmation of the directions to Meru's home.

To Chiri's shouts of good luck, they left the compounds of her home, flying on the staff over the neighborhood. Holding on to her half of her staff, Arisa felt some nauseas of exposed flight without her control.

"Someday, I'm going to figure out how to fly myself," she mumbled.

* * *

"You know?" Gabriel answered Arisa's self mumble, "I think it might be possible for you to do so using air currents."

Flying on the staff with an extra passenger was both slow, awkward and a squeeze. He was used to fast flight that allow him to move fast, swerve fast and stop fast. Flight that allowed him to fight or escape any danger fast. Arisa's additional weight was causing them to go slower and lower than he liked.

Not that he can mention it to her without it ending up as another quarrel.

The neighborhood was surprisingly quiet. The lit lights could be seen from the windows of the houses below them but the streets were empty. Devoid of human activities.

All to their benefit since they needed to avoid discovery. They did not need another Chiri at their back.

"How?" his god-sibling questioned back. There was discomfort in her voice as she tried to hold back her uneasiness.

"It is not exactly flight per say but being blown around by really strong air currents," he explained, keeping his eyes open for a house that fitted Chiri's description.

"Wind, you mean?"

"Yes," he continued, "By controlling the air currents using alchemy, you can direct them to carry you wherever you want. It might lack proper control but it should work." After all, he had used air currents himself to slow his own fall before. He also decided not to mention how the technique he was telling her felt more like being catapulted through the air rather than flying.

"Maybe," Arisa replied before pointing towards a house, "I think that is it."

Confirming her statement, Gabriel directed the staff lower as steady as he could, landing it at one of the darker nearby alleys. On the ground, the silence was even more disquieting. Still no sign of human activities other than the lights from the houses. Then there was no sound from the houses either.

No sounds of talking or of laughter. Not even the sound of blasting radio or television from the inconsiderate neighbor next door. Just silence of a town holding its breath.

In the silence, each footstep they took became more obvious and louder. There was no point in trying to mask themselves as they emerged from the alley. There was simply not a single soul on the street.

Giving the surroundings a good survey, Arisa stepped confidently out, marching towards Meru's house. Walking cautiously out of habit, Gabriel followed behind, constantly taking furtive glances to the back. His hands patting his various pockets in the robe to confirm the presence and condition of his equipments. Deck of cards, check. Wand, check. Holding tubes, check...

Meru's house was quiet. Just like every other house in the neighborhood. Walking past the ajar fence, they ended up before the door. It looked new.

Before he could stop her, his brash god-sibling knocked on the door. The loud knocks reverberated through the silent night.

There were footsteps from behind the door as someone approached to get them. To the squeaking of freshly-replaced hinges, the door opened wide and welcoming. Meru, the short, pony-tailed girl who insults people through mobile messages stood quietly before them, staring at them with shocked surprise.

She opened her mouth. Then she stopped herself. Then digging into her pockets, the silent girl took out her mobile phone, keyed something into it and lifted it up for them to see.

_Why are you here?_

"You called us," Arisa answered, cranking her neck to see the insides of the house. The inside was as standard as living rooms could be. Neat, tidy and everything in place. No signs of struggle or anything that hinted of danger.

Meru half-opened her mouth again before she stopped. Then she started to press into her mobile phone again for them to see what she wanted to say. The many mobile phone straps jingled as she thrust the screen forward in their faces.

_Welcome. Would you like some tea?_

"No. That won't be necessary," Arisa replied forlornly.

Gabriel could tell that Arisa was getting the sinking sense that it was just a hoax. Her hopes dashed once more and her spirits down. Peering into the house, he could see a man approaching them. Tall and burly but normal. Probably Meru's father.

Stopping just behind his vocally-challenged daughter, he looked down curiously on the two strangely dressed visitors. Then he turned towards Meru and asked about their presences. Meru shook her head in reply.

Turning back towards the two children with an arched eyebrow of surprise, the man smiled warmly. "Do you want to stay for a while?" he said.

"No..." Arisa answered, "Why did you call and-

"Thank you for your hospitality."

Before Arisa could finish her question, Gabriel cut her off and accepted the invitation for the both of them. There was something he wanted to investigate. Ignoring his god-sibling's glare, he stepped inside the house. She would soon follow behind.

Inside the house and seated comfortably, the living room was just as standard as before. Everything in place; everything straight. Their hosts welcomed them politely and entertained them well. They did not even ask awkward questions such as their reason to be here or their 'magical' outfit. The tea was good and so were the cookies. Nothing was out of place and nothing suggested a reason for Meru to call them.

Nothing but for the strange, faint stench in the air that you could only catch in occasional whiffs.

It marred the scent of the tea and cookies. Which was a real pity because those were really good.

After a delightful conversation about the town and the attractions around, both children were left to their own. The father had retreated to the kitchen while Meru returned to her room to make a phone call.

The moment the coast was clear, Gabriel tabbed Arisa's shoulder. Placing a finger to his lips in a hush signal, he stood up and walked lightly around the living room. Bending down, he peeked under the sofa and table. That was enough. He had seen what he had to see.

Then, getting back up, he signaled his sister to leave.

"Why?" Arisa whispered as she took up her disguised katana, "What did you see?"

"The new door was the first problem. Then, the place is too neat," Gabriel explained, "It was a perfect replica of what you would expect to see. But few houses are like that. Possibly only Chiri's house would be like that and that's because of her perfectionist, obsessive personality."

Arisa was obviously not paying attention. Instead she was looking all around the place herself. Undeterred, Gabriel continued, taking childish pride in his own deduction.

"When I checked under the furnitures, I realized that there were certain areas without dust. Thus my conclusion that the furnitures were actually moved or replaced. If there had been a struggle or something that cause the original Meru to call you, this would be proof that they had undone the damage."

"All circumstantial and I think you just made that up just now," Arisa countered as she checked under the furnitures herself, "But there did not seem to be a point staying any longer."

Gabriel raised a palm to stop her. There were footsteps behind them.

"Leaving already? Why not stay for a while longer?"

The father had returned from the kitchen with another plate of cookies. He smiled warmly as he placed the plate on the coffee table. Despite the overt warmth in his smile and his voice, there was also an underlying firmness in it. It was not a question or a suggestion. It was meant to be a command to be obeyed.

Not that Gabriel ever really cared for obeying anything.

"No, we really got to be leaving," he whined theatrically, "or we will be late for our curfew. Our place of lodging locks up after eleven. We cannot afford to be locked out."

At the side of his sight, he could see Arisa playing along. Tiny, round crocodile tears was already glistering at the corner of her eyes as she acted like the little girl she was. That was great acting. At times, the young mage was actually impressed rather than annoyed and bothered by her.

Gabriel always felt that it was better to do things quietly and in the shadows to avoid detection. Better to avoid conflict than to seek it. He had plenty of scars to attest to the undesirability of conflict. Strike fast, strike hard and retreat. Plan and think for yourself. If rules constrain you, don't follow them. All lessons that Dante had either taught him or he had learnt through experience.

Brash, rash, hot-tempered, intrusive, loud and proud. Arisa was very different. But like him, she was not below acting against common rules or other peoples to get what she thought things should be. She just tend to be a lot more flamboyant and blatant than him when she did so. And she liked it loud and flashy. Like the Black Hawk crash. It looked nice and a little cool, he admitted, but it was not his style.

His forced acceptance as her new brother. No amount of ignoring her or shouting her away then managed to get her off his back. In the end, he just accepted her self-declared sister status. It was Mother's final wish anyway. He was still resisting her declaration of being the elder one but it was just one example of Arisa getting her way with things; she will act in what she thought was best and to hell with what others think. He had seen so much of such behavior in the past few years together.

"Being locked out would be the last problem you had," the father grinned widely in an amusement of sorts.

"But, but, but..." Arisa whimpered, covering her face with her hands, "We had to go back. We promised our parents so..."

"Little children should not lie. I know your parents are not around. Why not just stay for a little while longer here? I have got ice cream and chocolate chips. And chocolate chips ice cream." His eyes kept glancing towards the door, noticed Gabriel, and how did he knew Arisa was lying when they never mentioned about parents?

"It is cold outside. I did not bring enough warm clothings," Arisa wailed. It was a really good wail, loud and forlorn done so to draw sympathy. Yet, it was not enough to move the father. Time for another approach.

"Oh really?" His voice silky, drawing for more time.

"Ya, really," Gabriel interrupted. The father turned his attention towards Gabriel, only to face the end of his staff directly.

Without any warning, Gabriel brought his staff down as hard as he could. There was a satisfying crack as hardwood met head. The father blinked in surprise. Then he stumbled back hazily. His eyes rolled back and he fell backwards.

"Do you have to do that?" Arisa scowled at the inappreciation of her stellar acting after rubbing the crocodile tears away from her eyes, "I could have convinced him to let us go."

Ignoring her, Gabriel knelt down to check the father's pulse. Still present. Not dead yet. Good enough.

Walking towards the unconscious figure of the man, or at least the man who claimed to be Meru's father, he dug his hands into the pockets, feeling for anything that would provide a clue to his real identity.

Nothing except for something. It was hard paper, curved to fit one's face snuggly. Rectangular holes cut at where the eyes should be. Another rectangle to represent the mouth and the red smudge of tears.

A mask. Something that he had commonly worn in the past.

"Hamasho," Gabriel read the fine prints at the back of the mask.

It did not sound pleasant, whatever it stood for.

There was a shocked gasp from the side. A thud as Meru dropped her mobile phone. How else could someone interpret a scene where her father was slumped on the ground, surrounded by children with long, blunt instruments?

Then again, it was exactly as it seems.

"Oh shi-," Meru mumbled before she turned to run away from the assailants of her father.

"After her!" Gabriel shouted, stumbling back to his feet as he attempted to give chase. The Meru's vocal mumble was the final clue to his deduction. She had been too polite anyway. According to Chiri, Meru cannot speak vocally. Many times, this Meru almost did and now she had finally gave the game away.

This Meru was a fake.

* * *

The room was empty. Disquietingly empty. Deliberately empty. So evilly empty.

Except for the presence of a single person. A person so magnificently evil that he defied the rules of villainy of having the occasional break to remain in the evilly empty room. What a maverick!

The Leader smiled sinisterly to himself as he was bathed in the sickly green glow of the green neon screen of useless information. The conspiracy was going according to plan. Just as planned, he thought again as he put on headphones to look more evil.

A beep. Followed by the buzzing sound of receiving fax. Surprisingly low tech but effective. Swiping the emerging paper from the machine and using the pale green light from the screen, the Leader read the latest reports update about the conspiracy and smiled insidiously to himself. Just as planned, he pressed the microphone at the side of his headphones, just as planned.

On the piece of paper were photos. Rows and rows of mugshots of the students of class 2-A. Many of them were covered with smudges due to the bad printing by the faulty fax machine. Those whose faces could be seen, many had big red circles drawn over it. The latest of which was that of the little girl with child-like face and ponytails.

One by one, their field agents were infiltrating the class. Replacing them one by one. Only a few left. Just a few. The Leader's eyes fell on a particular girl's photo. She would be a difficult target to emulate but his elite field agents should be able to do it. They were all genetically chosen and modified for the most accurate results.

Using his evilly red pen, he made large ticks on the next round of targets for the next day and returned the fax. Then he laughed to himself at the joy of having ordered the mass commitment of evil deeds.

The plot had been prepared. The machine was ready. It was now just a matter of time.

They had planned and waited for years. The combination of all the right elements. The invention of the doomsday device. All the outside funding through donations, patronage and brownie sales. Everything for the conspiracy. Everything for the organization's conspiracy. When both of their main targets are together and captured in one large swoop, the conspiracy would be near completion. The Leader liked that deliciously villainous thought. More laughter. More very disturbing laughter.

Buzzing noise as the fax machine spitted out another piece of paper filled with hastily scrawled words. Another report coming in. Snatching the report into his hands with the frustration of being interrupted when laughing disturbingly to himself, his beady eyes scanned the newly received reports.

Sightings!

Their target had presented himself right to them!

It was unexpected. They had put in such an elaborately evil plan to get him into their clutches and yet he just walked into their recently secured grounds. How evilly smart of him to catch them unprepared!

And how evilly lucky of them to catch him unaware!

Grabbing the telephone which he should have used in the first place for reports, he hastily dialed his various minions and lackeys and did much evilly loud and harsh shouts. He also spoke politely, respectfully and courteously at times because he was a maverick and evil maverick villains were not bound by any rules, good or bad.

Within minutes, a dark black van with many masked agents cramped into it exited the secret base and sped haphazardly towards Meru's home. All of them inside the van with a target in mind.

Capture him.

* * *

Arisa was already moving before Gabriel's exclamation. Closing the distance between the both of them, she swung the broom cover at the impostor.

The impostor did not filch. Taking a light step forward, she turned back and held up her arms to block the blow. The blow struck square against her arm. Despite the cracking sound of painful impact, there was no change in the Meru's facial expression. To be more precise, the children could not see her facial expressions anymore.

On her face, she had put on a mask. A plain mask of white with rectangular slits for eyes and mouth. And the tears of red like flowing blood. Just like the one they found on the father. Beyond the mask, the eyes were grim but that was all they could make out.

Without letting off the momentum, Arisa thrust the end of her broom forward, aimed towards the Meru's stomach. The Meru reacted quickly and caught the thrust directly in her palm, standing firmly on her ground. For the impostor's sake, Arisa winced at the idea of the resulting pain but there was no visible response from the Meru.

The fake Meru had taken the chance to advance her own attacks instead. Pushing the broom forward, she pounced onto the girl, pushing her towards the ground. Pushing herself back up despite the bruises, Arisa managed to roll away in time to avoid the attack.

The punch smashed the wooden floor platform and sent splinters flying onto Arisa. Another punch, another roll to get out of the way.

"Use your sword, stupid."

Gabriel threw himself at the Meru, tackling her away from his sister before getting thrown off by a forceful kick.

That bought enough time for Arisa to shed the broomstick sheath from her katana. Throwing the sheath aside, and turning the sharp end of the blade away to avoid seriously injuring anyone, she advanced carefully, waving the blade in a light motion to warn the enemy.

Meru launched herself viciously at Arisa again, clawing ahead of her. Taken aback by the speed, Arisa slashed her blade blindly, hitting Meru in the chest, ripping up her blouse. The impostor fell back from the impact, her arms swinging gently above the ground as she just stood silently there for a while, swaying drunkenly.

Gabriel had recovered and helped himself to Arisa's side, using his staff as a support while his other hand clutched his sore stomach. Then both children stared.

And stared in horror at Meru's ripped blouse.

There was something wiggling on Meru's stomach. Or the fake Meru's stomach, Arisa corrected herself. It was impossible to think the impostor as even human anymore. Her torso was dark shiny black and there were tiny appendices in neat rows waving frantically on it.

Like that of an insect.

The monstrosity lurched forward, snarling, growling and drooling behind the faceless mask in a disgusting guttural manner. Gross, Arisa suppressed a building retch in her stomach. The time doing so might cost her precious seconds. She would never see bugs the same again.

* * *

"So has the action finally started?"

"Yes," Chiri answered Nozomu through the telephone, "And neither of us are supposed to know that since we are technically unaware of what was happening else where at the moment. Is that the only reason for your uncalled call?"

"That will be a cliffhanger, won't it?" Nozomu clenched his fists as he felt inspiration and despair swept over him. He had a quota to meet and he knew what to say, "They were supposed to be helping me escape from this depressing place so that I can despair more!"

"The story left hanging in the middle with only the promise of a resolution at the next chapter," his student defined the term, sounding frustrated and angry, "Why can't they just round everything up within one chapter rather than resort to cheap tricks to keep readers in suspense? It irritates me!"

"That's because humans have a habit of suspending things. Readers suspend their beliefs to enjoy a fictional, fantasy story. Holy mans suspend themselves in mid air. Nasty shows get suspended from air. Electoral campaigns suspended (but only for a while). Suspension of shows in support of suspension of electoral campaigns suspended. Things can and will be suspended because of human instinct to keep things on hold."

He looked right. He looked left. Then Nozomu readied himself, took a deep breath, held it for a while to create more suspense.

"Despair! Human inclination to suspense have left me in despair!" he wailed in heartfelt anguish over the topic of despair for this chapter.

"This is as unforgivable as a half-baked chocolate mint cake. I am going to make the story continue!" Chiri declared angrily over the line, "Things should always be in whole. Things must end properly! Leaving things half-done, half-told, half-explained just isn't proper!"

There was a moment of pause. Followed by much action at the end of the line. There was, for a moment, suspense for Nozomu as he tried to figure out what was happening. Then he realized.

"STOP! That will only meant the suspension of our conversa-

* * *

The transformation from girl to bug monster was so fast, so twisted. A mish-mash of insect appendices and human limbs twitching in spasms as viscous drool dripped from behind the mask. The mask was still on, thankfully. For the sight of a half-insect, half-human face would have been an indescribably horrible sight to witness.

She knew she hate bugs.

Arisa could see Gabriel reaching inside his robe. The cards were out. Turning the sharp end of her blade facing the enemy, the young agent too prepared to defend against the staggering monster ahead. All odds were off.

With a final growl, the insectoid lunged ahead at her targets. Then it stumbled back from the impact of hit projectiles. Staggering on its grounds, the monster fumbled at its injuries, tearing out what had hit and hurt it. Just normal poker cards but hard enough to pierce through its thick carapace. Even grasping the card left deep cuts in the creature's claw. More cards were still embedded into its torso, drawing greenish-blue blood. Stranger still, the cards were warm and growing warmer by the seconds.

Gabriel drew another handful of cards from his robe, brushing his fingers across the carefully drawn symbols at the corner. It was a move he devised from the events four years ago. Supposed to emulate some cool moves he had once seen. Touching and transmitting some of his inert magical power to activate the alchemic symbols to harden the card and start the explosive reaction.

The cards exploded. Mini concentrated radius of destructive force tore apart what natural armor the tough insect carapace provide. Blew apart the claw that held the cards it had removed from the injuries, leaving only a dark stump. The insectoid stared dumbly at the damage dealt to its guts before falling back, gurgling in an unfathomable language.

Taking the chance, Arisa leveled her katana and made her dash. The sharp blade pierced through the soft insides of the monster. She put down another wave of nausea as she felt the squishy innards of the monster through her katana. Quickly planting her foot on the bug-Meru's stomach, or whatever it should be called, Arisa pulled out her weapon swiftly while kicking the monster to the ground.

Then she plunged her blade into the monster again. The spurting blood stained her blade, the surrounding carpet and her outfit with the disgusting color and stench of green-blue.

Arisa was about to pull the blade out again when the monster reacted unexpectedly, grabbing the katana by the blade. Its head tilted upwards, looking directly at Arisa through the rectangular slits of the mask. Desperately, the girl tugged at her katana, trying to free it from the bug-Meru. Yet, it held on firmly despite the seeping blood from its hurt hand. Then with its other claw, it grabbed hold onto Arisa's hand, holding it tightly and leaving blood stains on it. It trembled as it stared, making a condescending noise.

It is laughing at her, Arisa realized in both anger and fear, it is laughing at her.

Grasping the blade firmly, keeping the blade in its body, the monster started to lift itself towards the girl. Arisa's struggles could not free herself. Panic was starting to creep up to her.

A single spark of fire burst in the air beside her.

"No," Gabriel said as he swept his hand across the monster's arm that held on to Arisa. The hardened card sliced through the bug-Meru's arm easily and slickly, detaching it from the rest of the body. The monster gave a piercing scream before Gabriel jammed the card into its face.

The card was already glowing warmly.

Gabriel then grabbed her katana by the handle and pushed her to the ground. Together, Arisa and Gabriel fell, hitting the floor hard as the card exploded behind them.

Turning back cautiously, Arisa could see that the monster's head had been completely blown apart by the card. The headless and limbless body laid motionless on the ground, save for an occasional twitch of an appendix that did not seem to have received the signal of death yet. Then as though as death had brought relief, there was a sweeping sound of cascading sand before the body disintegrated before the children. First like a black sand structure breaking apart naturally; then the black sand itself dispersing into the wind.

Before they knew it, nothing was left of the monster. Not even a trace. Not even the disgusting blood that seemed to get everywhere. It was as though the bug-Meru they just defeated never existed.

They stared at where the body was in silence before Arisa broke the silence.

"Do you know what was that... thing?"

Gabriel shook his head.

Grasping her sides and hugging herself, Arisa shivered. For that moment, she had panicked. She did not know what to do. Faced with danger, she could not save herself but had to be saved.

She was use-

"Let's go," her god-sibling said, breaking her chain of thought. Turning away, he walked back towards the living room. The unconscious body of the man, the masquerader of Meru's father was gone. He must have regained consciousness and sneaked off.

"Search everywhere. The real Meru might still be around," Gabriel said softly as he continued to stared at the space where the man should be.

Arisa ran upstairs, obeying her 'younger brother' without questioning. For a moment, forgetting that she should be the domineering one and glad that Gabriel was taking action.

* * *

Looking around the room, Gabriel could not see any other places where Meru could be hidden. He then took out the mask they had removed from the man. The featureless mask of bloody red tears. Arisa came down soon. Meru could not be found. She was gone.

"What are we going to do?"

Gabriel shook his head. Perhaps they should just leave and return to Chiri's for now. The monster was easier than he expected. He had fought worse battles before. But where is Meru now? What did the monster do to her? Who is behind everything?

Hamasho. What could it be? What was going on? Whatever it is, Gabriel thought grimly as he pocketed the mask, they will get to the bottom of it.

"What about the real Meru?" Arisa asked as she did another sweep around the room.

"No point," he answered in his ever pragmatic method while stifling a yawn, "Someone must have taken her. We got no clues as to where. We would be wasting our time searching. It would be better for us to investigate further with Chiri regarding what Hamasho is."

Soon after they left the house, flying unsteadily on Gabriel's staff (with a knob at the end) back to Chiri's home, a dark van arrived and pulled over in the gardens of Meru's house. Many burly men, grunts all of them, in the deathly pale mask of blood-stained tears burst into the house led by an angry, equally burly man with a painful bump on his head who just an hour ago was 'Meru's dad', only to find an empty house.

* * *

The children had arrived back at her home exhausted and quickly collapsed on the floor. They were not sleeping in the arrangement she had properly arranged for them.

That annoyed her immensely.

Despite shaking them somewhat violently, the children persisted on remaining asleep. They were totally asleep. Totally exhausted. And they totally did not tell or ask her anything yet.

The totality of everything made her feel satisfied.

Dragging the children by their foot to where they should be sleeping, the phone rang again. It was Teacher Nozomu.

"I see that you have made the cliffhanger move on, Kitsu-san," Teacher Despair said.

"And they are totally out now. You can only have that much action for a comedy-based fandom" Chiri answered, "Is that all you have to say? If you got a message, say it in full. Don't hid it through small talk!"

There was a sigh of despair from her teacher. "Please tell my agents that Kino-kun had arranged for a boat to help me escape. My sister, Rin will be accompanying me. The boat will leave at ten in the morning."

With the message passed on properly, the telephone conversation ended. Chiri turned her attention back to the children. Neither of them were doing a proper job of monitoring her, preventing her from revealing their magical secret to anyone else. The children being totally asleep and all.

Children will be children, Chiri sighed, their punishment can come later. Probably immediately after they finally wake up. Then returning to her room for the night, she wondered what had happened and will happen to them.

The great escape for Teacher will start tomorrow.

* * *

Well, I hope you are not disappointed with the quality of the writing after such a long wait. To those new reviewers, thank you. The occasional review alert emails are a great way of reminding myself that I still got a fic to complete. Until the next update!


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